Teensy 3.0

westfw:

Well lets just not tell them

They caught on anyway. New policies prohibit "rewards" that are multiples of the product.

That's a shame, because a lot of the need for funding in electronics projects comes from the "scaling up" of manufacturing to larger quantities... (to build 2 of something small, I get my PCBs from dorkbotpbx, my parts from sparkfun, and use my trusty soldering iron. For 20, I (might) get the PCBs from itead or Seeed, parts from digikey, and start looking into stencils and hotplates. For 2000 ... I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure the up-front costs would be pretty significant.

Yes, I can see where some start-up capital is really needed to get going. Even then I don't know if the profit margin from the first batch would be high enough to finance the next large batch? The Kickstarter idea was pretty unique and maybe it will still be somewhat useful but it's too bad that a few bad apples have made them be more restrictive in their policy/rules. I recall in the 70s when the micro revolution was just getting started, many start ups would just go ahead and announce the price and avaliblity of a product and accept orders with no product yet to ship, Using the funds from orders to finance the production. It was given the name of 'vaporware' and many a buyer had horror stories about not getting any product ever and no return on money sent, etc.

Those new rules seem to have stirred the hornet's nest.

No way I'm going to read all the comments but the gist of it seems to be that people are angry about the "multiple rewards" and "rendering" bits.

I get why they have done it but it seems we have an example here of the law of unintended consequences, if you have a small and cheap item how are you supposed to reward a $500 pledge?

The rendering is not as clear cut IMO, I know all too well how easy it is to knock up a flash-looking render and some blurb but have nothing of substance behind it (heck that's what I do :)). But as someone pointed out we are visual beings, we want to see a picture and without that we are unlikely to pledge. I know I never buy anything off the web unless there's a good photo or two of the item.

Fortunately this has no affect on me because Kickstarter is not available to non-US citizens :frowning:


Rob

westfw:
New policies prohibit "rewards" that are multiples of the product.

Does that mean a backer can't pledge more than once? E.g., if I'm a backer, and pledge $20 (or whatever) and get one widget as my reward, does that mean I can't later pledge another $20 (and get another widget as a reward for the second pledge?)

I was surprised to read this because I was under the impression many current projects are/were still offering multiples as rewards.

I agree that idea that scale matters considerably in bring per unit price down (and thereby making a product commercially viable or not) is a crucial barrier in production of electronics. Seems to fit with the original kickstarter "mission" very well. Maybe there will eventually be an exception made for electronics?

fat16lib:
I have this Maple version of SdFat Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting. and it doesn't use DMA.

Oops! Well, that's embarrassing. I was under the assumptions a) that the Maple port used DMA, and b) that someone else besides yourself had done the port! :blush:

fat16lib:
I have examples of Kinesis SPI DMA and plan to try it but it won't help much.

SD, DMA, and SPI don't work too well together. The problem is the SD SPI protocol. SD cards indicate busy in SPI mode by holding MISO high so you can't just setup a DMA transfer and go away. The protocol uses control tokens in the data stream which is a pain.

Oh well, at least I've learned something. Anyway, thanks for your continuing support on both these fronts!

Look here for DMA mod of Maple: GitHub - polpla/Maple-SDFat-DMA: Version of the Maple SDFat Library that improves the transfer speed by using DMA for SPI communication

Discussion: http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=112&page=8

Related: libmaple/dma.c at master · leaflabs/libmaple · GitHub

Maple-DMA is not very interesting. It polls using single byte SPI reads while the card is busy then sets up DMA and polls while DMA runs. This does not save any CPU cycles or reduce the write latency. In fact there is a huge amount of unnecessary code due to the fact that this is an old version of SdFat.

Using the Freescale Kinetis SPI fifo should be as fast or faster. A loop to deliver 3 MB/sec to the SPI fifo for 24 MHz SPI should be easy with the Freescale Kinetis.

Improving use of cache and multi-block SD commands will produce a much larger gain than DMA. I can already get about twice the performance of the Maple-DMA version of SdFat on a AVR Mega with these improvements. I hope to get about another factor of three on Kinetis.

DMA could be useful with a multi-threaded RTOS. You could then build a true driver thread with the driver sleeping while DMA ran.

I plan to port ChibiOS and FreeRTOS to Cortex boards. ChibiOS and FreeRTOS already runs on Maple. I plan to integrate the RTOS kernels as a library so you can use the IDE core functions and other libraries in multi-thread mode.

Unfortunately my Teensy 3.0 seems lost in the mail so I can't start testing. I ordered two more from Adafruit so something should arrive soon.

Thank you for the explanation!

Paul has now provided SD access for Teensy 3.0 in his beta 4 release.

This is done by very clever emulation of the AVR SPI registers. There is also an emulation of AVR PORT and PIN registers.

Look at arduino-1.0.1/hardware/teensy/cores/teensy3/avr_emulation.h to see how this is done with C++ classes.

LOL, I'm just now seeing this thread.... been far too busy shipping the rewards and writing software!

I was wondering if anyone would ever notice those C++ classes?! I did some looking at libraries that use SPI, and sadly most of them directly access the AVR registers. The official SPI library arrived relatively late in the development of Arduino, so it hasn't been widely adopted. It also changed its own API at least once, causing at least one library author to dump it and go directly to the registers. The existing SPI library isn't much of an abstraction (eg, able to support the fifo, dma, or automatic chip select signals). Fortunately, the compiler optimizes away pretty much all of the C++ stuff because it's inline functions. The SPCR part isn't highly efficient, but the data register and status flag compile to the equivalent registers accesses. It was pretty painful having to clear the fifo every time SPDR is written, but that's necessary to faithfully emulate the AVR registers.....

For your sdfat library, at least making good use of the fifo should be much faster. Would you prefer to put the Freescale registers directly into your sdfat library, or work with the a new SPI library that supports the fifos and other features (and might be adaptable to other new chips with similar SPI features)?

Paul, I am doing a major redesign of SdFat to use better caching and faster SD commands so large writes/reads will be much faster.

I plan to support SPI and 4-bit SDIO on various Cortex M chips. I also want to make SdFat RTOS friendly when using DMA.

I would love to have a better low level SPI library for each chip.

I need a way to restore the SPI speed and mode each time I access the SD. I need single byte read and write for sending commands, receiving status, and polling for busy.

I need fast block read and write routines. These could use a fifo or DMA.

I am ready to start testing with some prototype SPI functions I have done but for some reason my Teensy 3.0 has not arrived in California yet.

Edit: I need the equivalent of these AVR functions.

//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/**
 * Initialize hardware SPI
 * Set SCK rate to F_CPU/pow(2, 1 + spiRate) for spiRate [0,6]
 */
static void spiInit(uint8_t spiRate) {
  // See avr processor documentation
  SPCR = (1 << SPE) | (1 << MSTR) | (spiRate >> 1);
  SPSR = spiRate & 1 || spiRate == 6 ? 0 : 1 << SPI2X;
}
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/** SPI receive a byte */
static uint8_t spiRec() {
  SPDR = 0XFF;
  while (!(SPSR & (1 << SPIF)));
  return SPDR;
}
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/** SPI read data - only one call so force inline */
static inline __attribute__((always_inline))
  void spiRead(uint8_t* buf, uint16_t nbyte) {
  if (nbyte-- == 0) return;
  SPDR = 0XFF;
  for (uint16_t i = 0; i < nbyte; i++) {
    while (!(SPSR & (1 << SPIF)));
    uint8_t b = SPDR;
    SPDR = 0XFF;
    buf[i] = b;
  }
  while (!(SPSR & (1 << SPIF)));
  buf[nbyte] = SPDR;
}
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/** SPI send a byte */
static void spiSend(uint8_t b) {
  SPDR = b;
  while (!(SPSR & (1 << SPIF)));
}
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/** SPI send block - only one call so force inline */
static inline __attribute__((always_inline))
  void spiSendBlock(uint8_t token, const uint8_t* buf) {
  SPDR = token;
  for (uint16_t i = 0; i < 512; i++) {
    uint8_t b = buf[i];
    while (!(SPSR & (1 << SPIF)));
    SPDR = b;
  }
  while (!(SPSR & (1 << SPIF)));
}

fat16lib:
Edit: I need the equivalent of these AVR functions.

I can do those, using the fifo for good speed.

Is there a version of your library which already uses these? Or some test code that calls them to do something simple, like read and print the MBR or Volume ID sector?

I need some sort of test code that I can compile and run.

This beta of SdFat uses the above functions: SdFatBeta20120825.zip http://code.google.com/p/beta-lib/downloads/list.

The functions are at the top of Sd2Card.cpp

It also has the following function to initialize AVR SPI pins:

/**
 * initialize SPI pins
 */
static void spiBegin() {
  pinMode(MISO, INPUT);
  pinMode(MOSI, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(SCK, OUTPUT);
  // SS must be in output mode even it is not chip select
  pinMode(SS, OUTPUT);
  // set SS high - may be chip select for another SPI device
#if SET_SPI_SS_HIGH
  digitalWrite(SS, HIGH);
#endif  // SET_SPI_SS_HIGH
}

This version of SdFat does not have the new stuff to speed up large reads and writes. That involves changes to use multi-block SD commands.

I'm looking that the beta code now....

One minor but important point for compiling on 32 bit platforms is the use of packed structs. By default, the compiler will align 32 bit types to 4 byte boundaries on 32 bit processors. That's definitely not what you want in SdFatStructs.h. It's necessary to add "attribute((packed))" to each struct definition, so the compiler packs the struct as intended.

For example.

struct masterBootRecord {
           /** Code Area for master boot program. */
  uint8_t  codeArea[440];
           /** Optional Windows NT disk signature. May contain boot code. */
  uint32_t diskSignature;
           /** Usually zero but may be more boot code. */
  uint16_t usuallyZero;
           /** Partition tables. */
  part_t   part[4];
           /** First MBR signature byte. Must be 0X55 */
  uint8_t  mbrSig0;
           /** Second MBR signature byte. Must be 0XAA */
  uint8_t  mbrSig1;
} __attribute__((packed));

The 32 bit compiler does not like many things in your iostream headers. :frowning:

I'll work on this more later today or tomorrow. For now, I need to focus on getting the rest of the kickstarter rewards shipped.

Sorry, I forgot to mention the packed attribute. for FAT structs.

I replaced the name fpos_t with FatPos_t

I had problems with types like uint16_t in extractors and inserters so I changed them to C types int, long...

The diff file that makes SdFat compile is:

diff -rb ArduinoOldVer/SdFat/SdBaseFile.cpp Arduino/libraries/SdFat/SdBaseFile.cpp
335c335
< void SdBaseFile::getpos(fpos_t* pos) {
---
> void SdBaseFile::getpos(FatPos_t* pos) {
1110c1110
<   fpos_t pos;
---
>   FatPos_t pos;
1794c1794
< void SdBaseFile::setpos(fpos_t* pos) {
---
> void SdBaseFile::setpos(FatPos_t* pos) {
diff -rb ArduinoOldVer/SdFat/SdBaseFile.h Arduino/libraries/SdFat/SdBaseFile.h
32c32
<  * \struct fpos_t
---
>  * \struct FatPos_t
36c36
< struct fpos_t {
---
> struct FatPos_t {
41c41
<   fpos_t() : position(0), cluster(0) {}
---
>   FatPos_t() : position(0), cluster(0) {}
201c201
<   void getpos(fpos_t* pos);
---
>   void getpos(FatPos_t* pos);
205c205
<   void setpos(fpos_t* pos);
---
>   void setpos(FatPos_t* pos);
diff -rb ArduinoOldVer/SdFat/SdStream.h Arduino/libraries/SdFat/SdStream.h
122c122
<   void getpos(fpos_t* pos) {SdBaseFile::getpos(pos);}
---
>   void getpos(FatPos_t* pos) {SdBaseFile::getpos(pos);}
138c138
<   void setpos(fpos_t* pos) {SdBaseFile::setpos(pos);}
---
>   void setpos(FatPos_t* pos) {SdBaseFile::setpos(pos);}
185c185
<   void getpos(fpos_t* pos) {SdBaseFile::getpos(pos);}
---
>   void getpos(FatPos_t* pos) {SdBaseFile::getpos(pos);}
193c193
<   void setpos(fpos_t* pos) {SdBaseFile::setpos(pos);}
---
>   void setpos(FatPos_t* pos) {SdBaseFile::setpos(pos);}
diff -rb ArduinoOldVer/SdFat/bufstream.h Arduino/libraries/SdFat/bufstream.h
61c61
<   void getpos(fpos_t *pos) {
---
>   void getpos(FatPos_t *pos) {
72c72
<   void setpos(fpos_t *pos) {
---
>   void setpos(FatPos_t *pos) {
diff -rb ArduinoOldVer/SdFat/istream.cpp Arduino/libraries/SdFat/istream.cpp
70c70
<   fpos_t pos;
---
>   FatPos_t pos;
143c143
<   fpos_t endPos;
---
>   FatPos_t endPos;
231c231
<   fpos_t pos;
---
>   FatPos_t pos;
264c264
<   fpos_t endPos;
---
>   FatPos_t endPos;
323c323
<   fpos_t pos;
---
>   FatPos_t pos;
384c384
<   fpos_t pos;
---
>   FatPos_t pos;
407c407
<   fpos_t pos;
---
>   FatPos_t pos;
diff -rb ArduinoOldVer/SdFat/istream.h Arduino/libraries/SdFat/istream.h
138a139
> 
144c145
<   istream &operator>>(int16_t& arg) {
---
>   istream &operator>>(int& arg) {
153c154
<   istream &operator>>(uint16_t& arg) {
---
>   istream &operator>>(unsigned int& arg) {
162c163
<   istream &operator>>(int32_t& arg) {
---
>   istream &operator>>(long& arg) {
171c172
<   istream &operator>>(uint32_t& arg) {
---
>   istream &operator>>(unsigned long& arg) {
256c257
<   int16_t getch(fpos_t* pos) {
---
>   int16_t getch(FatPos_t* pos) {
264c265
<   virtual void getpos(fpos_t* pos) = 0;
---
>   virtual void getpos(FatPos_t* pos) = 0;
271c272
<   virtual void setpos(fpos_t* pos) = 0;
---
>   virtual void setpos(FatPos_t* pos) = 0;
diff -rb ArduinoOldVer/SdFat/ostream.cpp Arduino/libraries/SdFat/ostream.cpp
158a159,160
>   putStr(str);
>   /*
164a167
>   */
diff -rb ArduinoOldVer/SdFat/ostream.h Arduino/libraries/SdFat/ostream.h
137c137
<   ostream &operator<< (int16_t arg) {
---
>   ostream &operator<< (int arg) {
145c145
<   ostream &operator<< (uint16_t arg) {
---
>   ostream &operator<< (unsigned int arg) {
153c153
<   ostream &operator<< (int32_t arg) {
---
>   ostream &operator<< (long arg) {
161c161
<   ostream &operator<< (uint32_t arg) {
---
>   ostream &operator<< (unsigned long arg) {

I suggest you try the bench example. Remove this line to get it to compile:

  cout << pstr("Free RAM: ") << FreeRam() << endl;

retrolefty:
Well lets just not tell them. :smiley:

Well given kickstarter has now changed the rules, and Teensy 3.0 as it was funded would not have been allowed under the new rules. So it may not make any difference whether you tell them or not. Paul himself has spoken out against the new rules, and I imagine hardware projects like the Teensy will just go elsewhere.

Kickstarter can go back to being a tip jar to fund art projects, as it evidently wants to do so. As I said in their blog, I wish them a good life, but I have stopped looking at KS for interesting tech projects to fund. The only things I do on KS now is to check on updates to the 4 tech products I recently backed (RadioBlock, Teensy, Digispark, and JumpShot) as well as the one non-tech product (Deck of Extraordinary Voyages)

I believe the recent rule change was motived mainly to protect Kickstarter from liability, rather than protecting backers from failed projects. I haven't seen anything really conclusive about the Hanfree lawsuit, but the plaintiff publicly said he asked the court to rule the nature of the transaction was an ordinary sale. I'm an engineer, not an attorney, so I'm not going to speculate what that might mean?

It could also be purely coincidental that the "not a store" rule change came about just as the Hanfree lawsuit was making it's way through the legal system.

Here's the failed Hanfree project, where you can read all the ugly details in the comments.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/831303939/hanfree-ipad-accessory-use-the-ipad-hands-free/comments

It's the legal analog of Brooks' law: "Adding lawyers to an already bad situation is only going to make things worse."

Just wanted to let others know of my progress so far on using my new Teensy 3.0 board. I had to order a micro USB cable and it arrived yesterday. I had previously loaded the modified IDE and the Teensy driver thingee, so I just attached the Teensey to the cable and plugged it in. PC seemed to be happy with the attachment and a led on the Teensey was blinking away so I assumed they ship it with the blink sketch loaded. I opened the IDE, selected the Teensey 3.0 board, loaded the mimumSketch example and it upload. I was a little surprised when the Teesey loader pop window sprung up, as I had no idea how the Teensy works with the arduino IDE, but the loader has a option to follow a scrip log and it seemed to all be working correctly, even though in the IDE results window is says something about compile size is zero bytes, but the Teensy loader pop-up log shows all the correct size info and a lot of other stuff. Anyway the Teensy board did stop blinking it's led, so everything seemed to upload and run OK. I then loaded blink sketch example in the IDE and hit upload and everything worked again and the board did indeed start blinking it's led again.

So I guess the report is that the Teensey 3.0 seems to work right out of the box as designed even for this software-installing-challenged kind of guy that I am. I still haven't a clue what I might do with this board yet. And Paul seems to be releasing a new IDE version every other day to add some new arduino library update, so it seems kind of silly to rush into anything. But it's a great little product with a lot of promise ahead for it I think. I kind of hope a Teensey forum might start up to help support this product, if one is not already around somewhere?

I'm still getting over the shock of how....well teensey this thing is, so small.

Lefty

@Lefty - glad it's working. I fixed the size reporting in beta4. This evening I'm going to publish beta5, with a master-only port of Wire (slave mode to be filled in next week), and Serial1, Serial2, and Serial3 working.

@fat16lib - I applied the patch. Now the code compiles. :slight_smile: It's not quite working, but that's probably a bug on my end. I'm investigating now. Will try to get those 24 Mbit/sec optimized routines written for you.