SAM-BA not responding with olimex sam7s256

Question

I am using an Olimex sam7s256 board. I tried to get it up and running in linux (Ubuntu). I was able to successfully install GCC and binutils. I installed SAM-BA for linux from the atmel site. I was able to get the USB port for connection as specified in the SAM-BA manual (.dev/ttyUSB0). But when I try to use the GUI and 'connect' there is no response. I though that there is a connection failure, so when I presses the reset button in the board, I get a message "Failed to initialize FLASH accesses". No matter how long I wait before pressing the reset button, I am not getting any SAM-BA window as given by other tutorials as below

can any one one help me out in this? I did the 'tst' jumper set, reconnect the board for 10 s, disconnect and 'tst' jumper reset, reconnect before opening SAM-BA. Any help will be greatly appreciated. I am stuck. It is the same for both SAM-BA 2.9 and 2.8.

Answer 1

By this point you are already connected. If you specified the at91sam7256-ek even if you arent using that board it will not put this gui up if it didnt talk to the chip/board. I recently went through this exercise with an olimex sam7s-256 header board. (with ubuntu linux). If I didnt specify the board type then the window came up but it wasnt really connected.

Notice how the code at 0x00200000 is valid instructions (most start with a 0xE and the vector table starts with a bunch of 0xEAs which are branches out of the vector table) that is ram it didnt make those up it read that from somewhere. Load a binary file into ram in the 0x00200000 range and the refresh the memory (assuming your binary is different from what is there) and see it change.

When ready/comfortable you can erase the flash and see in the memory window that the flash (0x0010000 or something like that) changes to all 0xFFFFFFFFs. Now remember it wont boot when you do that. With the board I have there is a jumper you move then power the board to get the built in bootloader re-loaded into the flash so that you can use sam-ba again, I am sure there is a way to do that with your board but read the users guide first.

Please do not close this person out for asking about using a software tool. There are countless numbers of how do I use my iphone simulator or why is my android simulator slower than my iphone simulator questions that dont get touched. this question is as relevant as any of the programming questions about how to use gcc or some web thing or how to start up my phone simulator or java vm. I wouldnt want to have to start a campaign to close all of the gcc or iphone tagged questions because they are not programming questions.

Answer 2

Hi dwelch, I think my question was misunderstood. The GUI window which I have posted is NOT what I get. I just posted it to say that I am not getting such a window at all. That window pops up only when I select 'no board'. When I select SAM7S256-EK there is no response. No window opens. As given in your blog sam7stuff.blogspot.com, I downloaded SAM-BA. The onlydifference as u have posted and in the response also id that u are using a 'h' board. Right now I am using a custom made SAMBA alternative from this website, http://claymore.engineer.gvsu.edu/~steriana/Software/ It is also a python based boot loader. It is command line though. I would love to use the SAM-BA GUI. I am sure that the board is OK and samba is communicating with the board b'cos if I select any other board type other than ARM7S256-EK option it is giving me 'communication failure'. If you have any suggestions please do let me know. Also many thanks for backing me up. I had some real good insights from this forum about embedded field and I felt it is a good place to discuss embedded programming doubts and never thought of 'programming' or 'non-programming' b'cos for SAM-BA user guide itself talks a lot about customizing the SAM-BA for a custom made board involving TCL scripts but I couldnot get hold of the concepts. So I thought someone would have had the same problem and would have found a TCL or C 'programming' solutions in this forum. Thank you.