A13 barebones (no linux) development

[saand]

Hi All,
Has anyone looked into developing with the A13 without linux.

I assume the eclipse toolchain could be used to connect and debug with this however i have not come across any header files available which would allow access to any of the chips registers.

I am looking to start a project that has very fast processing and access to the chips low level control and zero overhead of a operating system.
Any help or examples are much appreciated.

[David Goadby]

Hi,

I did have a quick look at this but the costs of ARM development kits and yet another learning curve put me off. I didn't realise there was an Eclipse tool-chain for ARM so maybe I missed a trick....

One area you might struggle with is getting the internal information on the A13. There is a lot known now but there are still areas where little is known. Looking at the Android and Linux source code will yield some data but not all. In fact I think that it might be the best place to start.

I appreciate the overhead issues but it is easier to write code with the available development tools either on-board or using a PC-based Linux platform with a cross compiler.

My timing requirements are not too tight, and memory is cheap, so I am happy to run C and Python on the Debian O/S as supplied. I do want some limited graphics but I just discovered that GTK-3 is available so I might be ok without having to run a full X system.

There is some help around if you Google on the topic but it may be a daunting task.

As someone who still programs PIC chips, I am amazed the amount of computing power we are getting for our money! I have already ditched a PIC-based web-server project for an A13 as the software development is so much faster and cheaper.

[saand]

Hi David,
The ARM dev kit costs and learning curve was also putting me off however the A13-OLinuXino is a very nicely priced dev kit. Now i just have the learning curve.

Regarding the Eclipse tool chain, I have not used Eclipse in its standard form for ARM development but i have used code composer studio 5 which is eclipse with slight modifications for TI.
Also there is a great tutorial on how to setup Eclipse and all of the other software to develop with a ARM7 from philips
http://www.sparkfun.com/tutorial/ARM/ARM_Cross_Development_with_Eclipse.pdf

The lack of internal info on the A13 is mainly what is stopping me. You do make a good suggestion of looking into the android linux source code. I may be able to reverse engineer the info I'm after then create a header file for eclipse development.
I am hoping someone else has given this a go and could save me days or setting up with some useful info from their experiences.

[Fadil Berisha]

Hi All,
Has anyone looked into developing with the A13 without linux.

I assume the eclipse toolchain could be used to connect and debug with this however i have not come across any header files available which would allow access to any of the chips registers.

I am looking to start a project that has very fast processing and access to the chips low level control and zero overhead of a operating system.
Any help or examples are much appreciated.

Everything what you need about chips registers are on A10 User Manual v.1.2 - 2012-04-09. You can download from here:

http://dl.linux-sunxi.org/A10/

There is also A10 Datasheet.

Ragards,
Fadil Berisha