License
Firmware Studio (including TOF code) is a public domain Forth-based firmware development system. You may use it with no restrictions whatsoever provided you assume responsibility for the correctness of the resulting system.
Firmware Studio provides tools to help with such verification, and you should make a habit of using them to familiarize yourself with the target code and to shake down your application.
Warranty
No warranty for usability, reliability, correctness or any other characteristic is provided or implied. If you choose to use Firmware Studio for an application, either personal or commercial, you assume the responsibility for its usability, reliability, correctness and all other program characteristics and warranty responsibilities. Neither Brad Eckert nor any other contributor to Firmware Studio or TOF will assume any responsibility for its use in any manner.
Support
If you find a bug in Firmware Studio or its associated programs I will try to get around to fixing it. Include the revision level in your bug report. I also provide free e-mail support as time permits. If you need the kind of extensive support that would involve payment, contact me.
Installation
Get the latest Firmware Studio archive from http://www.tinyboot.com/fs.html. You should also install the DriverLinx Windows95/NT port driver.
Unzip the archive to a directory on your PC, such as C:\FF. All executable and source files are present. Create a shortcut that executes FF.EXE. After creating the shortcut, right click on it and select Properties. Click the Shortcut tab and Change Icon button and Browse button to choose one of Firmware Studio's cute little icons:
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For the most functionality, get the freeware DriverLinx Port I/O (downloads section) from Scientific Software Tools. If you're running NT, get administrator privileges before installing DriverLinx. If you don't load this driver, you'll get a nag screen at startup:
Currently, only the AVR tools use the port driver. You might as well install it sooner than later. It will be used for more things in future releases.
Firmware Studio may be re-compiled by a public domain Forth system for Windows95/NT, called Win32Forth. It is available at http://www.forth.org in the compilers section. If you have Win32Forth, you can use it to recompile Firmware Studio. In Win32forth, click on Load in the file menu and navigate the file structure to select ...\Source\FW.F. It will update the executable and terminate Win32forth.
The main directory structure looks like this:
.\ | Main directory contains executable files and TOF source files |
.\Source | Source files for re-building executables |
.\Documentation | Word documentation files |
.\Documentation\AnsForth | HTML ANS Forth draft standard |
.\Documentation\man | HTML Firmware Studio manual |
.\Spix331 | Source files for 68331 TOF evaluation board |
.\Spix8031 | Source files for 8031 TOF evaluation board |