General Start-up Questions

[Unregistered User]

I'm starting to work with the CubeSat Kit Development Board and have a couple of questions:

1.- Do you have the software to work with this kit for Windows Vista or Linux?
2.- Do you have a step by step guide to develop a "Hello World" program?
3.- Can the Flight MCU be programmed via the FT232BM USB Interface?
4.- The board has two power inputs: J3 (+6V to 24V) and J1 (5V). Do both of these power the Flight MCU?

[aek]

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1.- Do you have the software to work with this kit for Windows Vista or Linux?

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The softare supplied with the CubeSat Kit consists of Pumpkin Win32 installers (built with NSIS) for the Pumpkin CubeSat Kit software, Pumpkin Salvo RTOS software, and the Pumpkin CubeSat Kit EFFS-THIN software.

We have not tested with Windows Vista -- have tested these installers with Win98, Win2k and Win XP.

Linux users can utilize 7-Zip (http://www.7-zip.org) to extract the files contained in the Pumpkin installers on Linux machines.

The required compiler/IDE (CrossWorks for MSP430) is available from http://www.rowley.co.uk in both Win32 and Linux versions.

Note that the Pumpkin CubeSat Kit EFFS-THIN software is supplied as libraries for CrossWorks for MSP430, compiled via the PC version of CW430. We do not know if these files are compatible with the Linux version of CW430.

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2.- Do you have a step by step guide to develop a "Hello World" program?

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Not currently, but the sample program in the Test directory of the CubeSat Kit software has plenty of I/O, among other things.

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3.- Can the Flight MCU be programmed via the FT232BM USB Interface?

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This would require a bootloader over the USB interface. We do not currently provide one. Programming and debugging is currently provided via a Flash Emulation Tool (FET) from the CrossStudio IDE.

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4.- The board has two power inputs: J3 (+6V to 24V) and J1 (5V). Do both of these power the Flight MCU?

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Yes. You can verify this quite easily by reading the schematics or simply observing the status of the VCC LED (D11) on the Development Board.

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[This message has been edited by aek (edited September 18, 2008).]