Installation of mspdebug

Mspdebug is a great tool for programming and debugging MSP430 controllers.

Installing of the MSP debug stack

Mspdebug can use the TI MSP Debug Stack which provides a driver for some of the debug adapters like the MSP-FET430UIF. We are going to build this driver for use with mspdebug later.

Pre-requisits

Before we can start compiling our library we need to install some additional packages in Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install libboost-dev libboost-thread-dev libboost-filesystem-dev libudev-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev libusb-dev

The above command should fetch a whole raft of libraries, enough to start compiling.

Download the sources for the library. wget http://www.ti.com/lit/sw/slac460k/slac460k.zip

unzip slak460k.zip

cd MSPDebugStack

The author of mspdebug has made a patch which symplifies our life compiling the library, download and apply the patch. wget http://mspdebug.sourceforge.net/misc/slac460h_unix.diff

patch -p1 < slac460h_unix.diff

All hunks should apply although with some warnings because the patch was really for an older version.

make

Grab a cup of tea...

When compilatin finishes without errors you should have a file called libmsp430.so in your current directory. Install it with:

sudo make install

Instalation of mspdebug

We will use the git repository with the bleeding edge code.

git clone git://git.code.sf.net/p/mspdebug/code mspdebug

cd mspdebug-git

If you want to install from a released version instead, download the latest version from http://mspdebug.sourceforge.net/download.html and unpack it:

tar xvfz mspdebug-<version>.tar.gz

cd mspdebug-<version>

Build it:

make

Install it:

sudo make install

Time to test if it all works:

mspdebug tilib

It should output something like:

`MSPDebug version 0.22 - debugging tool for MSP430 MCUs
Copyright (C) 2009-2013 Daniel Beer dlbeer@gmail.com
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Chip info database from MSP430.dll v3.3.1.4 Copyright (C) 2013 TI, Inc.

MSP430GetNumberOfUsbIfs
MSP430GetNameOfUsbIf
Found FET: ttyACM0
MSP430_Initialize: ttyACM0
FET firmware update is required.
Re-run with --allow-fw-update to perform a firmware update.
tilib: device initialization failed `

Important to note is the line Chip info database from MSP430.dll... which indicates that it found our freshly built libmsp430.so. The example above indicated the firmware on the MSP-FETU430IF is outdated so let's correct that.

mspdebug tilib --allow-fw-update

This command will take a while and you should among others see something like this:

... FET firmware update is required. Starting firmware update (this may take some time)... Initializing bootloader... Erasing firmware... Programming new firmware... Done, finishing... Initializing bootloader... Erasing firmware... Programming new firmware... 0 percent done 25 percent done 50 percent done 75 percent done 100 percent done Done, finishing... Update complete ...

Now connect the FET to your board and run mspdebug tilib. If it detects your mcu correctly it will dump you into an interactive shell where you can program and debug your software.