synth/alchitry-loader

Alchitry Loader (based on D2XX)

This project was originally used as a tool by Alchitry Labs to program the Alchitry boards using the official D2XX library from FTDI. You can find D2XX here https://ftdichip.com/drivers/d2xx-drivers/

It has been updated to include the Alchitry Au+ and can be used as a stand-alone command line tool for loading the Alchitry boards without using Alchitry Labs.

Alchitry Labs no longer relies on this loader and instead has a fully Java loader built in.

Building

Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/alchitry/alchitry-loader.git

Enter the project files

cd alchitry-loader

Create the Makefile

cmake CMakeLists.txt

Build the project

make

Test it out

./alchitry_loader

Linux and macOS and libftd2xx

On Linux (and macOS?) the default kernel drivers prevent libftd2xx from working properly. On Linux, you can use this to de-register all ftdi-sio devices (until plugged again):

make ftdi-unbind

Usage

Usage: "loader arguments"

Arguments:
-e : erase FPGA flash
-l : list detected boards
-h : print this help message
-f config.bin : write FPGA flash
-r config.bin : write FPGA RAM
-u config.data : write FTDI eeprom
-b n : select board "n" (defaults to 0)
-p loader.bin : Au bridge bin
-t TYPE : TYPE can be au, au+, or cu (defaults to au)

Examples

Load a .bin onto an Au's RAM (lost on power cycle)

./alchitry_loader -t au -r au_config.bin

Load a .bin onto an Au+'s flash (persistent config)

./alchitry_loader -t "au+" -f au_config.bin -p ./bridge/au_plus_loader.bin

Note that to load to the Au or Au+ flash memory you need to specify a bridge bin file. These can be found in the bridge folder of this repo. This file is loaded onto the Au and allows this loader to program the flash memory. It acts as a bridge from the JTAG port to the SPI of the flash memory.

The source for the bridge files can be found here https://github.com/alchitry/au-bridge

This isn't needed for the Cu which has direct access to the flash over the SPI protocol.