using Tasking for embedded firmware (general Arm cortex M)

[julianhigginson]

So... I was under the impression that the Tasking component in Altium could be used as a general purpose embedded IDE for arm (and all the other interesting processors tasking seems to support if I was to care about them...)

The main reason I have avoided it till now is that generally I am working on projects where not everyone has AD, and at 10k, altium would be a pretty expensive IDE to give all the software developers.. But i was always interested to try it - mostly because it's not gcc, and I like the idea of having access to different compilers.

So I thought I'd have a go at playing with tasking tonight, and well.. 3 steps into the walkthrough on Altium's website and I am about to try and set the project settings to select a target to compile hello world for, and I get the awesome little "Information" "please wait a moment" dialog and progress bar we all love so much, heralding a crash. I restart altium (17 subscription, up to date) make a new example project and try again.. same..

Now I notice that the docs for this part of the program look pretty old and un-cared for, even for the legacy docs section.. and the PDF on using arm embedded tools is dated December 2009... and 7 human years is about a century in software application years, even though the tasking website itself seems pretty up to date.

So.. before I burn too much time working out if I can get AD17 or 16 to even run through the tasking example,  is anyone running Tasking in altium to develop for arm cortex M parts, generally?  if so:

1) what do you consider the features that are worth using over eclipse/GCC, and why?

2) what's the process for adding a new device to target (say I wanted to compile something to flash a LED on my trusty little FRDM-K64F board?)

Alternatively I'd be OK to hear about how it's totally useless and not ever going to do what I want. Better to read that here than discover it myself after many late frustrating evenings of faffing about trying to build a non-trivial project to test it with. :-)

[julianhigginson]

55 views and no bites... so I guess nobody is using Tasking?

[DerekG]

55 views and no bites... so I guess nobody is using Tasking?

Protel International (now Altium) purchased TASKING in 2001. They did heaps of advertising for a couple of years but then all the "hype" they were generating died down. I can't give you any pointers as I don't use it.

Perhaps the person to ask would be Free Electron:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/profile/?u=446

[Bud]

I get the awesome little "Information" "please wait a moment" dialog and progress bar we all love so much, heralding a crash. I restart altium (17 subscription, up to date) make a new example project and try again

Read my thread "Did Altium backpedal on FPGA". To get rid of the error you need to install FPGA support, but you get other error which is impossible to get rid of unless you replace the embedded dll with one from v16.
Even then, Altium does not support embedded and FPGA anymore.

Edit: replacing the dll was a suggestion from Altium support, but the old v16 DLL is almost twice as smaller on size vs v17 one, and they did not know if it will fully work in v17

[julianhigginson]

aaah thanks, I saw that thread but was under the impression that was just about the FPGA stuff, and I don't want to be bothered with that - Vivado works great for my purposes and I can't believe support for artix or spartan7 will ever make it into AD's FPGA toolchain.

so, in order to *just* do embedded arm development for a completely normal non-FPGA arm chip using the C compiler I was sold as part of my altium purchase, I literally need to have the full FPGA setup installed?? that's not looking good for my future use of Tasking.

I'm currently installing:
Aldec simulator
xilinx precompiled libaray package for aldec
tasking pin mapper

is there anything else you think I'll need?

thanks!

[julianhigginson]

hmm. Maybe time for my own support ticket.

I have AD16 still installed, but no point trying out this as a new feature to learn if it's going to tie me to an outdated release to be able to use.

External exception EEDFADE at 770EA832.
KERNELBASE.dll, Base Address: 77010000.

Exception Occurred In  DocumentOptions

[Bud]

In Extensions and Updates go to Installed, click on Configure in the top right corner and tick FPGA Support box.

I literally need to have the full FPGA setup installed?

Seems to be so (maybe not full)

[julianhigginson]

OK.. installed FPGA support in the hidden config box, and gave it a go.

Now I think I've seen enough of Altium Tasking..... it's a complete joke.

The dialog box opens up with the compiler options tab all blacked out (as in totally not drawn!) and then draws them as I click around in the different panels and widgets... (and then if I select anything at all as the target, it complains about no toolchain.)

if they can't even get drawing the compiler options tab right, it's a waste of time to even ask support about using it to do anything actually valuable.

A shame.. looks like it has MISRA C rule enforcement in there, if only someone in Altium could make it behave like a piece of working software.

[Bud]

So first about drawing: i figured out i have to switch my Win 7 to Aero theme, then it works. This is not unique to Tasking, i experience that trouble in PCB designer too. Perhaps my graphics card is obsolete and a new one might support the required mode without switching to Aero, do not know. So try that if you are on Win 7.
Now to toolchain error. Go to Purchased screen in Updates and in Hardware section install what you can find there for your embedded platform. They have STM 32 and i believe NXP, then you will be able also to select a target chip in the project options with no toolchain error message, though still not all of the chips.

[Bud]

This type of graphics rendering crap happens:

[Jeroen3]

I use Tasking 8051 occasionally, and it's being ignored to death since 2007. Can't even say they've fixed all major bugs.
Wouldn't recommend Tasking based on previous experiences.

[DerekG]

I use Tasking 8051 occasionally, and it's being ignored to death since 2007. Can't even say they've fixed all major bugs.
Wouldn't recommend Tasking based on previous experiences.

Protel paid US$38 million for TASKING in 2001. Looks like their lack of investment & advancement in TASKING has rendered this investment as worthless.

I wonder what has happened to all the employees who came with the acquisition?

[julianhigginson]

So first about drawing: i figured out i have to switch my Win 7 to Aero theme, then it works. This is not unique to Tasking, i experience that trouble in PCB designer too. Perhaps my graphics card is obsolete and a new one might support the required mode without switching to Aero, do not know. So try that if you are on Win 7.
Now to toolchain error. Go to Purchased screen in Updates and in Hardware section install what you can find there for your embedded platform. They have STM 32 and i believe NXP, then you will be able also to select a target chip in the project options with no toolchain error message, though still not all of the chips.

Windows 10 pro 64 bit for me. on a lenovo W540 for what its worth...

attached some pics to show what my options dialog looks like, before and after I go clicking about in it...

thanks for the tip on the installed devices. now I can select something I might even try to target! And with the project settings not crashing, I can also run through the getting started section, simulate hello world, and watch it output to a console.

[Bud]

Well i guess if your graphics adapter is not in the list of their compatible graphics adapters then you may be on your own. But try opening a ticket with your local support and see what they say. I am interested to know. And by the way - you are not running Altium in a VM, are you?

[julianhigginson]

Nope, I'm just running Altium on windows 10, directly off my system drive. No VM or anything else.
This one tab in this setting window is the only part of Altium that ever gives me such weird behaviour....

Maybe I will make the effort to submit a ticket, seeing that I now have the thing claiming to compile for a processor I might use, and successfully simulating the running of a hello world and an iterated loop....