Hi everyone,

First I would like to thank Steve for excellent work with Plasma. I have Spartan 3E-1600 and Plasma works fine on my board, I can start almost every example program which is in tools directory. I’m working on my master’s degree and one of my tasks is to demonstrate some network functionality on Plasma CPU (sending and receiving UDP/Ethernet packets).

I’ve been playing with tools directory and I ran on some problems with “make etermip”. It says that I need to download wpcap.lib, what I have done, but I still can’t execute “make etermip”. I tried with different versions of wpcap.lib but I still get the same error. Maybe someone can provide me with wpcap.lib file that works or give me some tips how to start this?

Then I started playing with kernel directory. In makefile for Plasma RTOS and Plasma TCP/IP stack I found that there is an option “make rtos_tcpip_eth”, for what I think is exactly what I need. I downloaded wpcap.dll and packet.dll files, and “make rtos_tcpip_eth” works fine. Now I have test.bin file which I usually send to my board through TeraTerm and I get RTOS working fine. Now I’m wondering how can I start some network activity, in makefile says use flash file system, what does that mean? I ran on some examples here on opencores, for “make rtos_tcpip” and then “make download”, but I can’t execute “make download” I get this:
Reset board before downloading code
..\tools\\etermip.exe
Serial Port In Use!
Serial port already in use!!!
ERROR2
ERROR3
ERROR4
ERROR5
Sending test.bin (length=53992 bytes) to target...
Done downloading

…and nothing happens. I have a serial to USB cable on COM9. And example before, “make testip” I can’t run because it needs etermip.
I’m wondering if someone can help me with some tips regarding how to start some network activity through Ethernet on Plasma?

Thank you very much.
Best regards,
Matija

Matija,

I am glad you have found the Plasma project useful.

Regarding the etermip tool compile error, could you please Email me (rhoadss@yahoo.com) all of the files you are trying to use (wpcap.lib, ...) and a log of the error messages you are seeing.

It looks like you found the pre-compiled version of etermip.exe at OpenCores. The tool etermip assumes that "COM1:" is used to talk to the board. That might explain the "Serial Port In Use!" error message.

If you used "make rtos_tcpip_eth", did you see on the serial port a message that indicates that DHCP got an IP address? Do you see any LED flashes? Can you "ping plasma"?

Steve

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your quick reply.

I have sent you an e-mail with all of my plasma files.

After I have changed my serial port to COM1, "make download" works.

When I execute "make rtos_tcpip_eth" and after this "make download" I see RTOS running fine in my DOS window, but I can�t do anything with Ethernet. I have limited or no connectivity with my board and when I check LAN activity there are only sent packets and zero received. My options are set to obtain IP address and DNS server automatically; maybe I can set them manually to get Ethernet working? I don't get any message that indicates that DHCP got an IP address and I also don't see any LEDs flashing.

Thanks,
Matija

Thanks to Steve I managed everything to start working. My problems were:

I used compiled version of etermip from this site which assumed using COM1 port, so I needed to change my serial port to COM1.

At home I have wireless connection to Internet and I couldn�t get IP address from DHCP server for my board when trying to make rtos_tcpip_eth or make testip. To get this working, I had to use wired connection. I used one switch which I connected to my computer, FPGA board and Internet all together. After this my connection to my board was fine, no more limited or no connectivity and I could ping Plasma without any problem.

Another problem on which I ran was that I couldn�t get address for my gateway and I couldn�t send files using FTP protocol to my board. Steve suggested that I could try hard coding the gateway to my PC's IP address, but there was no need to do that because Steve modified the code to ARP for the MAC address if the gateway is unknown. Now everything is working.

Big thanks to Steve.

Best regards,
Matija