SDCard Browser for the RAM & IO expansion SPI port.

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lb3361
Posts: 360
Joined: 17 Feb 2021, 23:07

SDCard Browser for the RAM & IO expansion SPI port.

Post by lb3361 »

Announcing the first release of a browser targeting SDCards attached to the SPI ports of a RAM & IO Expansion Card. Any card compatible with Marcel's original design should work. Go to https://github.com/lb3361/gigatron-os/blob/master/sys1 for code and instructions.

This can be compared to the popular browser that uses a SDCard attached to the Pluggy Reloaded. Both provides the same functionality in very different ways. The Pluggy Reloaded browser relies on the relatively fast Pluggy microprocessor to process the filesystem but suffers from the slow Gigatron Loader protocol. This browser does everything on the Gigatron but benefits from a SPI interface that is about eight times faster than the Loader protocol. On the other hand, it needs hardware that is far less widespread than the Pluggy Reloaded. A challenging part of this work was porting the well known FatFS library to the Gigatron and writing a C compiler in the process...

This first release adds a number of goodies compared to the prototype described in https://forum.gigatron.io/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=329.
  • Much faster and more compatible booting code in the DEVROM.
  • Can use cards attached to ports SPI0 or SPI1.
  • Detects card changes and remounts new cards as needed.
  • Better compliance with the SD and FAT specs.
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Last edited by lb3361 on 30 Oct 2021, 13:25, edited 1 time in total.
Hans61
Posts: 102
Joined: 29 Dec 2020, 16:15
Location: Saxonia
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Re: SDCard Browser for the RAM & IO expansion SPI port.

Post by Hans61 »

Very nice work. The speed is great. I just tested it with my current expansion (SD card to SPI0 and MCP23S17 to SPI1). Everything works.
at67
Site Admin
Posts: 647
Joined: 14 May 2018, 08:29

Re: SDCard Browser for the RAM & IO expansion SPI port.

Post by at67 »

Amazing stuff once again! I haven't had a chance to try it on my expansion board yet, but I will as soon as I can find some time.
axelb
Posts: 41
Joined: 07 Jan 2021, 06:27

Re: SDCard Browser for the RAM & IO expansion SPI port.

Post by axelb »

I recompiled the system.gt1 for ROMvX0 and put it to my fork of the gigatron-os repository:

https://github.com/axelb68/gigatron-os/ ... system.gt1
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