4.1 Preparing to program a device

Connect the controller to the target device using the cable you constructed in Constructing a Connector as shown in Figure 4.1. Be sure that the connector is orientated correctly. No damage will occur if it is the wrong way around, however programming will fail.

Figure 4.1: Controller connection at the target device

Connect the controller to your computer via its serial port or USB port. For many controllers power to the controller is supplied through its USB port. If however you are using a conventional serial port rather than a USB port, then you will have to explicitly supply power to the controller. The arrangement will be similar to the illustration Figure 4.2.

Figure 4.2: A computer ready to program a target device. The controller is in the centre of the picture. The target device is on the right.

The commands described in this chapter take the general form:

upad [--port=serial-device] arg0 arg1 … argN

where serial-device is the name of the serial device for communication with the controller. For example if serial device is called /dev/ttyS1 then you could start µPad with a command similar to:

upad --port=/dev/ttyS1 arg

Normally, however the software attempts to discover the identity of the computer’s serial port so the ‘--port=serial-device’ can be omitted. It is necessary only if the software is unable to correctly deduce the identity of the serial port. Normally however the above example could be reduced simply to

upad arg

Therefore the examples in this chapter omit the specification of the serial port. If however you are using a non-standard port, or if µPad fails to correctly identify the port, then you will need to supplement the commands with the appropriate ‘--port=’ option.