FPGA remote slow control via UART 16550

PC control software

In this section we will try to give ideas on how to drive the UART from a PC besides the simple implementation with RealTerm.

in the software folder of the project archive you will find:

• rtd_uart_test.bat :
• copy this bat file inside the RealTerm software folder to load the program (http://realterm.sourceforge.net/)
• passing parameter settings (uart port, speed, display size, etc)
• check "RealTerm_line_commands.txt" in the documentation folder for more parameters
• loads a file "Hex_commands.bin" (in BINARY format) and sends it over UART
• known strange behavior of such method:
• COLS=18 doesn't set the number of columns to 18
• relative paths or paths with "" don't work

• py_serial_control.py :
• custom very simple script to read and write the UART with Python (http://www.python.org/doc)
• uses the pySerial library (http://pyserial.sourceforge.net/)
• parses human readable parameters and translates them into the correct hex commands
e.g: >> update --> 0x8000 0x00000000
• Customize your script
• define your commands
• DEFINE the number of registers to expect back after an update
• Browse to you script folder
• from a shell type: python py_serial_control.py
• enjoy ! :)
• to be implemented:
• load parameters and commands from files
• improve read back print on screen formatting
• make a generic nregister readout

py_serial is Linux friendly! :)

Tested on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS