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fundamental
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Joined: 26/05/2014
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 3

Posted: 07:21pm 26 May 2014

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Hello, Can someone please assist...

I have a Duinomite Mini with :-

Maximite BASIC Version 2.7A
Copyright 2011 Geoff Graham

>
and I am thinking of trying Pinguino or C or a newer version of MMBasic. Once I am finished I would like to go back to exactly what I had before. My understanding is that there are several versions of 2.7A for Duinomite, so one way or another, I need to backup!

It would be particularly nice to be able to simply extract the "hex on the chip" in the same or similar format to the hex files supplied for new versions of Maximite BASIC.
It would be particularly annoying to have to buy a programmer.

I had a brief look at a naive way of doing things by doing something like this : -

200 OPEN "MYDAT.DAT" FOR OUTPUT AS #1
210 for i = 0 to 10
220 x = peek(PROGMEM,i)
230 print #1, right$("0" + hex$(x), 2)
240 next
250 close #1

It bombed, presumably examining memory in this manner is a bad idea. Even if it worked it would still need some formatting to get it to the same format as an input hex file.

Any other thoughts?

BobD

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Joined: 07/12/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 935

Posted: 08:14pm 26 May 2014

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I can't help you with V2.7A but I can point you to MMBasic version from V3.1 to the current. V2.7A was very basic (sorry about the pun) and V3 was a vast improvement.
You can get the current downloads here. This page also includes a link to the archive of previous versions.
http://geoffg.net/maximite.html#Downloads

direct link to the Duino latest
http://geoffg.net/Downloads/Maximite/DuinoMite_MMBasic.zip

and the archive with all of the old versions
http://geoffg.net/Downloads/Maximite/Archives/

JohnS
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Joined: 18/11/2011
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 4071

Posted: 08:43pm 26 May 2014

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I think there was only one DM 2.7A version.

Regardless, Olimex will have the HEX (or bin or ...) for your board and be happy to provide it. I just looked and couldn't find it on Geoff's site.

I have the one for the DM Mega and I think they're the same.

Wait... the HEX is linked from your board's product page.

However, to change to some other ways of using a DM I think you'll need to change the bootloader and for that you need a way to reprogram.

In essence, there are 2 flash memory areas: 12K for the bootloader and 512K for the main flash.

The bootloader in theory could be the same but I suspect it isn't.

Also in theory each bootloader could replace itself with another but I don't think they do.

There's a thread on here at the moment about creating ways to program these chips without needing to buy a $20-30 tool (PICkit3, readily available e.g. ebay) so if you wait a while that would bridge the gap.

JohnEdited by JohnS 2014-05-28

jman

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Joined: 12/06/2011
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 711

Posted: 10:15pm 26 May 2014

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Here you go

Jman
2014-05-27_081451_Duinomite27B.zip

fundamental
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Joined: 26/05/2014
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 3

Posted: 09:10am 28 May 2014

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Thanks for the replies and later version of the code, much appreciated.

I think the fact that it's not just me who could not find the 2.7A DM proves the need for a tool to retrieve the hex

.

Hopefully such functionality may be considered for this new programmer being built.

It's a real shame the naive basic programming method does not work!

JohnS
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Joined: 18/11/2011
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 4071

Posted: 10:24am 28 May 2014

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Can you not reprogram it just by using a USB cable and an app like mphidflash? I suspect it'll work fine.

Be a good idea to have a PICkit2 or 3 just in case, though.

John

fundamental
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Joined: 26/05/2014
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 3

Posted: 07:29am 29 May 2014

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JohnS said Can you not reprogram it just by using a USB cable and an app like mphidflash? I suspect it'll work fine.

Be a good idea to have a PICkit2 or 3 just in case, though.

John

Quite possibly.
However, in order to later get back to *exactly* where I was, it seems I need to backup what I already have installed in a format that can be used to reprogram.

MicroBlocks

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Joined: 12/05/2012
Location: Thailand
Posts: 2209

Posted: 08:59am 29 May 2014

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Having a programmer is less annoying then buying one. :)

I had the same problem before when i just used the built in bootloader to update the chip, until i got a non working update. Going back was difficult as my previous hex was nowhere to be found.

Now that i have a pickit 3 i just read the chip first, just in case.
Makes live much easier. It was one of the best buys.

Microblocks. Build with logic.

psergiu

Regular Member

Joined: 09/02/2013
Location: United States
Posts: 83

Posted: 09:02am 29 May 2014

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Always use the latest firmware:

Either Geoff's MMBasic (link above, 4.5 was just released) or Olimex's DMBasic ( https://github.com/OLIMEX/DuinoMite/tree/master/SOFTWARE/FIR MWARE )

Looks like Olimex just deleted all the old 2.x versions from their github site and kept only the latest ones.

plasma
Guru

Joined: 08/04/2012
Location: Germany
Posts: 437

Posted: 09:14am 29 May 2014

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i use Geoffs latest version on a Duinomite Mega .

works like a charm.

Upgrade and be happy.

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