RabbitCore RCM4000

[giftiger_wunsch]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to electronics so I apologise if this is a stupid question, but I have had a RabbitCore RCM4000 microprocessor for a while now, and I'm hoping that someone in these forums is familiar enough with it to give me some basic advice on how to start using basic input/output devices (such as sensors, motors, etc.). The device is mounted on a prototyping board which has well over 100 points at which components can be added, but the explanatory poster is somewhat beyond my level of knowledge at this point and I lack the technical experience to figure out how to interface IO devices with the board.

I've tried looking on the forums for this product but they gave the rather unhelpful answer 'RTFM'; since the device didn't come with a manual as such, I'm stuck just figuring out how to begin.

I'm an experienced programmer so once I have some sort of basis of understanding of the hardware aspects, writing software to implement the installed hardware won't be a problem for me.

The explanatory poster for the device can be found at http://www.rabbit.com/documentation/docs/rab40_ref_poster.pdf so perhaps others will be able to make more sense of it than I have been able to.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or advice.

 

[Wp100]

Hi,

Its not a development board seen very much on this forum, would think your best place to look for help is the Rabbit forum itself.
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Just looking at the board it seems quiet a high level thing for use with C10 etc.
If thats your thing fine - however the Pic type of micros are much more popular, diy friendly and well documented - so you might prefer to start with one of those instead - see the Sticky at the top of this forum for beginner info.

 

[dougy83]

It appears that there's a manual on their site. HTFM:
Rabbit Document Downloads

Actually, there's a lot of docs to the right of the product's page
RCM4000 RabbitCore® | Products | Rabbit

 

[giftiger_wunsch]

I had a look at the manual on the site, but it seems to be extremely technical and I don't really understand a great deal of it... I'd just like some basic information on how I would go about connecting and controlling simple IO devices such as this before I start looking at the complicated technical aspects of the device. If anyone could give me some pointers of how to start using this device, or even just point me to some relevant sections of the RCM4000 manual, I would be very grateful.

Thanks for the prompt responses.


Edit:

If thats your thing fine - however the Pic type of micros are much more popular, diy friendly and well documented

I seem to remember doing some research on this when I first bought the processor, and can't remember why I chose the rabbit device over a PIC processor now; maybe I should look into it again. I was originally trying to find a microprocessor which I could program in Java since it's my preferred language, but I was unable to find one anyway.

 

[blueroomelectronics]

Did you buy a development board or just the CPU chip?

 

[giftiger_wunsch]

I bought the RCM4000 Development kit; it included the RCM4000 module and the prototyping board on which it is mounted (and a serial cable so that it can be interfaced with the Dynamic C, the development software + IDE provided).

 

[tkbits]

The schematic shows a green and a yellow LED connected to port E bits 5 and 7.

Figure out how to turn those on and off, and make them blink.

One of my former coworkers kept saying that a blinking LED was the hardware version of "Hello, World!"

 

[giftiger_wunsch]

The schematic shows a green and a yellow LED connected to port E bits 5 and 7.

Figure out how to turn those on and off, and make them blink.

One of my former coworkers kept saying that a blinking LED was the hardware version of "Hello, World!"

That sounds about right (the hello world comment). I'll consult the schematic and then give it a try, thanks for the suggestion.

 

[giftiger_wunsch]

Thanks for the help, I managed to make the green and yellow LEDs blink, as well as the two red LEDs controlled by port B on bits 2 and 3. What I mainly need to be sure of now though, is how to correctly attach external I/O devices to the parallel ports, and how they are controlled.

Dynamic C, the IDE used to control the processor, has separate functions for reading from / writing to internal and external IO devices on each parallel port, so I assume that each of the parallel port bit sockets on the prototyping board corresponds to an IO device, while the internal devices are separate and handled by other parts of the board invisibly (or at least, in a way that I can't see)... am I on the right track?

So for example, I should be able to connect my own LED to PE5 on the prototyping board, and turn that on with the external IO write function for port E bit 5, or activate the LED you pointed out in the same bit / port location internally to the board. Is that correct?

 

[blueroomelectronics]

I wonder if there are any Z80 forums that may have some rabbit users. What made you choose the rabbit over PIC or AVR?

 

[giftiger_wunsch]

I wonder if there are any Z80 forums that may have some rabbit users. What made you choose the rabbit over PIC or AVR?

I honestly don't remember now, I bought it well over a year ago but since then I had some problems figuring out where to start, as well as being busy with university and whatnot.

I was originally looking for a chip which could be programmed in Java, but never managed to find one. In the end I settled for the RCM4000.

Though so far I've only managed to make a couple of the module and the board's LEDs flash on and off, I'm pretty excited to have been able to do that because once I get the basics I'm pretty sure I can build up to much more complicated tasks. I'm a pretty experienced programmer so it's mainly the hardware side which I'm less confident about, hence why I'm posting about this on an electronics forum