[TK.]

In order to get rid of the windows propritary MPASM assembler, I started to migrate MIOS and most of the applications to the GPUTILS toolchain. This freeware is available for all major operating systems (including Windows/Linux/Mac OS), and therefore should allow everbody to customize and rebuild an application without Windows installation.

The main reason why this important step had not been done in the last years was the incompatibility of the GPASM macro preprocessor, which is less powerful than MPASM. Especially my beloved IFSET and IFCLR macros are not supported. As a compromise I'm using simple versions of this macro now (e.g. BRA_IFSET, BRA_IFCLR, CALL_IFSET, etc...), and converted the existing source codes to this new scheme with a perl script, and adapted the remaining cases (which were not covered by the automation) manually.

These changes are finished now, and instead of providing the quick&dirty conversion script for Unix users, I decided to maintain all existing applications with the new "GPUTILS" style in future.

For MIDIbox end-users this change is less dramatical when it sounds above - GPUTILS can be easily installed, thereafter an application can be rebuilt by typing "make" in the command shell (or windows users: by double-clicking the make.bat file). It's simpler and requires less tools than ever before! :)

Resources:

• MIOS Download page (click on the refresh button of your browser if you don't see the new packages): http://www.ucapps.de...s_download.html
  
• GPASM Guide: http://www.ucapps.de...ools_gpasm.html

Following projects have already been adapted - the remaining packages will be migrated soon!
All of them got a new version number. Only exception: the mios source code package (to avoid additional effort at my side...)

change_id_v1_9d.zip
magic_midi_delay_v1_5a.zip
mbhp_tv_v1_3a.zip
midi_benchmark_v1a.zip
midibox64_v2_4a.zip
midibox64e_v2_2a.zip
midibox_cv_v1_2a.zip
midibox_fm_v1_1b.zip
midibox_lc_v1_6b.zip
midibox_mf_v2_2a.zip
midibox_seq_v2_4d.zip
midibox_seq_v3_2b.zip
midibox_sid_v1_7303c.zip
midibox_sid_v2_0_rc17.zip
midibox_tc_v1_7a.zip
midimon_v2_0a.zip
midio128_v2_1e.zip
mios_v1_9f_src.zip
skeleton_v1_9a.zip

Best Regards, Thorsten.

/Edit: I uploaded all .zip packages again, only change: "make distclean" Makefile rule replaced by "make cleanall", since the name "distclean" could be misleading.

[stryd_one]

That's great news thanks TK! :)

I knew someone would write that perl script eventually hahahaha

[bosone]

this means that MPASM could not be used anymore for newer developments or that we can ALSO use the new GPUTILS?

[TK.]

Hi Matteo,

Quote

this means that MPASM could not be used anymore for newer developments or that we can ALSO use the new GPUTILS?

There is no need to use MPASM anymore, and it's strongly recommented to publish applications GPASM-compatible in future, so that even Linux and Mac OS users are able to customize an application, and to create a new .hex file. Thats the reason, why I'm planning to re-release all my own applications, which isn't so much effort at all.

GPASM is slightly incompatible to MPASM (macro expansion), MPASM is slightly incompatible to GPASM (cannot handle files w/o DOS-style linefeeds, cannot handle filepathes longer than 63 characters). But at the end GPASM brings us more advantages than MPASM.

If somebody encounters issues with the usage of GPASM, or with the conversion of an old, selfwritten application, just ask in the Assembler programming section for help. I'm willing to support you during the migration, I could also do this for you (it takes ca. 1 minute) if desired.

Best Regards, Thorsten.

[sineSurfer]

TK: but you still can use MPASM with the updated sources? I have a crappy Pc on a corner just for this kind of things, easier than installing the other stuff on Mac ;D

[TK.]

You don't really know what is going on, hm? GPUTILS is a 470k package and easier to install than MPLAB. Yes, you can still use MPASM, some files have to be converted so that they contain the DOS style linefeeds again. You also need to specify the target processor explicitely now, and sometimes you have to add an include path.

If you don't know how to do this, just click on this link: https://sourceforge....?group_id=41924, and download the gputils-win32 package. It really doesn't hurt!

Best Regards, Thorsten.

[sineSurfer]

r u sure it won't bite me? ;D

I'll try GPUTILS both on Mac and Pc then;)

[cimo]

...the microchip suite was the only reason why i had a double boot x86, time to clean up the hard drive!
i haven t tried gputils yet to build asm code (just the little _asm code in my first C application, osx) but i am looking forward to, there is a MBLC+MB64 on the bench soon.
thanks for supporting free multiplatform software
 

[Wilba]

Install GPUTILS... double-click make.bat... Too easy! Long pathnames! Finally! Hooray!

Uninstalling MBLAB IDE now...  ;)

[cimo]

eheh long pathnames, C:\ adios!

[TheProf]

May I add a small suggestion for an alternative text editor for Windows. I've been using the UK written TextPad, for a long time now. It's a bit cheaper than UltraEdit, and has a lot of community support for it's syntax highlighting. (there are lots of syntax files available for free download). The evaluation version does no more than 'nag' on startup, otherwise you get the full version. I'm not saying it's in any way better than UltraEdit and certainly not Emacs, but it's one I got used to, and does a good job for me.

There is an old story that in the full expert version of Emacs there is a 'make universe' command, (they say Emacs is the editor of the gods).

[cimo]

.. i use smultron on osx (when i don t use xcode) it just does the job and it is free!
.. what would you guys advise for linux?
simone

[TK.]

Thanks for the input, Mike - I added the link to the GPASM page.

The remaining assembly based applications have been re-released now:

j5_din_v1_3a.zip
j5_dout_v1_3c.zip
jitter_mon_v1_3a.zip
lcd7_clcd_v1_9a.zip
lcd7_iic_v1_9a.zip
lcd7_ks0108_v1_9a.zip
lcd7_pcd8544_v1_9a.zip
lcd7_t6963c_h_v1_9a.zip
lcd7_t6963c_v_v1_9a.zip
lcd_benchmark_v1a.zip
lcd_interconnection_test_v1a.zip
led_digits1_v1_3a.zip
led_digits2_v1_3a.zip
led_digits_clk_v1_3a.zip
led_digits_mtc_v1_3a.zip
mbfm_interconnection_test_v1a.zip
mbfm_testtone_v1a.zip
mbsid_interconnection_test_v1a.zip
mbsid_led_matrix_test_v1a.zip
mbsid_testtone_v3a.zip
mf_calibration_v1_4a.zip
mf_direct_control_v1_1a.zip
revision_id_v1a.zip
sm_example1_v2a.zip
sm_example2_v1a.zip
srio_interconnection_test_v1a.zip


And there is a new MBSEQ V3 version with a fix for J5 gate outputs, and support for AOUT_NG module:
midibox_seq_v3_2c.zip

Best Regards, Thorsten.

[stryd_one]

Rock on TK :)

Quote

May I add a small suggestion for an alternative text editor for Windows. I've been using the UK written TextPad, for a long time now. It's a bit cheaper than UltraEdit, and has a lot of community support for it's syntax highlighting.

This may be counterproductive but FWIW I'm a big fan of Notepad++ .... I actually had the credit card out, ready to buy UE, and decided I'd better try to find a freebie before I coughed up, and this is the perfect candidate.
Add the explorer plugin (which I think actually comes with it now) and compare plugin, and it does everything that UE does, but is open source and free. Similarly to TP, it has a configurable highlighter and you can share your highlighting files. C and ASM come standard. There's also output window and debugger plugins so you could compile and debug your MIOS app from within the GUI if you want (I haven't documented how to do this, as the codeblocks tutorial on the wiki has it covered) and it does search/replace with regexps and all kind of stuff that even UE won't do. Recommended.

[Wilba]

Thanks stryd... the Notepad++ homepage has this very interesting link:
Sign a petition against Microsoft's Office OpenXML becoming an ISO standard
which of course I did.  ;)

[ptitjes]

Hi Simone,

Quote

.. what would you guys advise for linux?

Surely Scite! This one is a really cool free software editor! http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html
It has all the syntax highlighting you can imagine, and i think you can easily add some! And this one also runs on Windows...

By the way, I can only tell people to vote against Micro$oft way to create what they call "standards"...

Best regards, Didier.

[TheProf]

I've just had a classic example of Finagles law ("The Peversity of the universe tends to a maximium").

In my last batch of scrap, I have just discovered a fully working Microchip MPLAB ICD2 programmer/in circuit debugger. Which of course  runs from MPASM.......

[TheProf]

Emacs cartoon - kind of appropriate:

http://xkcd.com/378/

Enjoy

[audioworld]

oh no/yes: just as i did my frist baby steps with MPASM (and discovered I have to move everything to C:/...)!!!

however, the words "platform-independet" and "open-source" always give me a warm feeling inside, so hurray to GPUTILS and thank you TK.

regarding the Editor:
i am just an amateur coder, but want to point the windows users to PSPAD:
http://www.pspad.com/en/
(freeware).