CodeWarrior
is a very powerful and professional IDE. The main feature of CodeWarrior IDE is the
source level debugger in assembler and C. CodeWarrior Special Edition is a wonderful gift from Freescale to all of us and it's
free for educational use. What's more, by CodeWarrior supporting serial monitor, they have made it very
affordable to support CodeWarrior for the OEM.
Freescale has invested millions of dollar into CodeWarrior and the current versions work
very well. What's more, Freescale knows
they will never sell enough copies of CodeWarrior to make back what they have
invested. They did it to drive chip sales.
As a software developer, the first thing you look at is available tools
and what it will cost.
There are many companies making MCU chips these days and for the most part they
all have about the same features at a similar price. Special Edition CodeWarrior sets Freescale apart from others. There is no any MCU chip maker
offers you a such first class C source level debugger free of charge.
CodeWarrior IDE does not work with D-Bug12, but it works with serial
monitor. Before Freescale created the serial monitor a BDM is needed
as an interface between the PC and HCS12. Freescale created the serial
monitor for working with CodeWarrior to eliminate the cost of a
BDM.
Now a student can use the serial monitor with CodeWarrior to debug his programs and in fact, many universities have been using the serial monitor with CodeWarrior without a BDM in their classrooms.
Without spending money on a BDM, a student will be
able to spend his savings on purchasing a more advanced trainer, like the
Dragon12-Plus board with many on-board peripherals.
Purchasing an EVB board that comes with a BDM at a reasonable price, most
likely leaves the student with an EVB of only limited functionality.
Some universities use D-Bug12 monitor first, then replace the D-Bug12 monitor with serial monitor to be used with CodeWarrior IDE. In this case, a school laboratory only needs to have one BDM or use one Dragon12 board as a BDM POD, to program all students' boards with serial monitor.
To replace bootloader and D-Bug12 monitor with serial monitor, you need a BDM or a BDM POD to perform the task. The procedure to program the on-chip flash memory is shown on page 16 of the user's manual. The file name of the serial monitor is Serial_Mon2r0_DR12P_8MHz.s29, which is also included in the CD, can be downloaded at this site.
Some universities use CodeWarrior IDE only. In this case, we pre-load the on-chip flash memory with serial monitor.
For the Dragon12 and Dragon12 Plus boards:
If
your board is pre-loaded with D-Bug12 monitor, the Port B LEDs
will light up from left to right one at a time and the speaker
will chirp once when the board is turned on. If the chirp is too soft you
can remove the sticker on the speaker to increase the volume.
If
your board is pre-loaded with serial monitor, the Port B LEDs
will light up from right to left one at a time and the speaker
will chirp once when the board is turned on. To distinguish RUN mode from LOAD
mode, Port B LEDs will light
up again from left to right one at a time in RUN mode.
The left DIP switch of SW7 is used to select run or download mode. The left DIP switch is set in the “up” position for RUN mode and in the “low” position for downLOAD mode.
For the MiniDragon Plus2 board:
If your board is pre-loaded with D-Bug12 monitor, it will display a diagnostic code “E-4-3” on the 7-segment LED and the speaker will chirp once when the board is turned on. The code character "E" stands for EVB mode.
If
you ordered the board with serial monitor for Code Warrior, it would be
pre-installed with serial monitor and a factory test program. The left DIP
switch of S7 has been set in the “up” position as a factory setting for
running the test program. When the
board is turned on, it will display a diagnostic code “U-4-3” on the
7-segment LED and the speaker
will chirp once before running the test program. The
code character "U" stands for running a user program.
To interface with Code Warrior you have to reset the DIP switch
in the “low “position. It will display a diagnostic code “S-4-3” on the
7-segment LED and the speaker
will chirp once when the board is turned on.
The code character "S" is displayed as a character
"5" and stands for serial monitor.
Useful links for learning Code Warrior:
The CodeWarrior
stationery file for the Dragon12-Plus and MiniDragon-Plus2 can be used in
two new books "Learning by example using C - Programming the Dragon12-Plus
using CodeWarrior"
and "Learning by example using
C - Programming the MiniDragon-Plus2 using CodeWarrior".
The books are written by professors Richard Haskell and Darrin Hanna at Oakland
University.
Instructions
of how to download Code Warrior from Freescale's web site and CodeWarrior
tutorial can be found at Professor Paterno's web site:
http://web.njit.edu/~paterno/ECET310/CodeWarrior.pdf
The
CodeWarrior project setup procedure can be found at Professor Jeff Sumey's web site:
http://www.aet.cup.edu/~jsumey/cet360/cwintro/cwintro.html
The
CodeWarrior tutorial for the Dragon12-Plus board with the Freescale's serial
monitor can be found at Professor Edward Sazonov's web site:
http://cias.clarkson.edu/classes/ee360/2008/Dragon12Ptutorial.htm,
no BDM is needed
The
most resourceful “CodeWarrior for the Dragon12 trainer” web site:
http://www.mecheng.adelaide.edu.au/robotics/wpage.php?wpage_id=56
Following
is the web site for downloading the free CodeWarrior special edition version
4.7:
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?nodeId=01272600610BF1
The newest revision 4.7 removed the 32-file limit.
Following
is the web site for downloading the CodeWarrior full edition for a 30-day free
evaluation:
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?nodeId=01272600612247