Package v2.1 is the first official upgrade release for the Logic Sniffer. Download it now at the Gadget Factory. This version has a lot of updates that should fix a bunch of problems in the initial release: FPGA bitstream v2.1 with high-speed SPI connection between the PIC and FPGA. This eliminates most ‘hardware not found’ […]
Author Archives: Ian
Logic Sniffer upgrade procedure
This is an old version, see the latest version on the documentation wiki. The Logic Sniffer is an open source logic analyzer. It’s designed to support the SUMP logic analyzer software at the lowest possible cost. This project is a collaboration between the Gadget Factory and Dangerous Prototypes. The Logic Sniffer has two parts that […]
Bus Pirate: Firmware v5.0
Bus Pirate firmware v5.0 is now available for download. This is the first release with Sjaak’s newterm overhaul. This version has a completely reworked core with lots of new features to make prototyping easier than ever. We encourage you to take a walk around the new interface, go further north, and explore it. As with […]
Free PCB Sunday: Bus Pirate demo board
We go through a lot of prototype PCBs, and end up with lots of extras that we’ll never use. Every Sunday we give away a few professionally-made PCBs from one of our past or future projects, or a related prototype. Our PCBs are made through Seeed Studio’s Fusion board service. This week we’re giving away […]
Week in (p)review: June 20, 2010
Here’s some highlights from the past week, in case you missed them: The Bus Pirate PIC programmer has rescued a couple more Logic Sniffers. No problems have been reported so far. Pirate-loader is an application that loads firmware updates into the Bus Pirate. We got it to compile with MinGW and wrote a short tutorial. […]
Public SVN activity mailing list
SVN commit logs for Dangerous Prototypes SVN and the Bus Pirate project SVN are available on a developers mailing list. Sign up to get email notifications or daily digests of SVN activity, there’s currently 10-20 commits per day. This is mostly useful for developers, but you can also follow progress on your favorite project, or […]
Flash Destroyer kit protoype
Flash Destroyer kits are being assembled and should ship shortly. This is Seeed’s test-build of the kits, everything looks good. The Flash Destroyer kit is available for $30, including worldwide shipping.
Web platform: uIP TCP/IP stack with SD card
The uIP TCP/IP stack for the web platform now lists and reads files from an SD card. You can now read files and list directories from the SD card. There’s also a ‘sddump’ command that will dump sectors from the sd card in the same way that memdump dumps memory, for troubleshooting. The latest uIP […]
Intro to MinGW: Compile pirate-loader
MinGW is a Windows port of the open source GCC compiler. It will compile native Windows executables from C, C++, and a few other languages. In this post we document our experience compiling the pirate-loader bootloader application. Pirate-loader, originally written for Microsoft Visual C, is a C program that uploads a new firmware to the […]
Bus Pirate PIC programmer release
PiratePICprog executable and source are available on the Bus Pirate Google Code page. PiratePICprog is a new application that uses the Bus Priate to program PIC microcontrollers. V1 only supports the PIC 18F24J50 in the Open Logic Sniffer, but is has 18F and 24F script modes for prototyping other chip protocols. It requires Microsoft’s .net […]
Open Logic Sniffer bootloader rescue
Some Logic Sniffers shipped without a bootloader, and will require a firmware flash before USB upgrades are possible. This post describes how to program the OLS bootloader using a Bus Pirate. It’s also possible to program the bootloader with a PIC programmer like a PICkit or ICD2. If you don’t have a Bus Pirate or […]
Free PCB Sunday Flash_Destroyer build
IPenguin got a free Flash Destroyer PCB on Free PCB Sunday. He used sockets with the 7-segement displays so different colors can be swapped in later. There’s a build log with lots of photos in the forum. On May 30, 2010, I saw the Free PCB Sunday: Flash_Destroyer blog pop up and posted a comment… […]
Week in (p)review, June 13, 2010
Here’s some highlights from the past week, in case you missed them: On Monday the EEPROM in the Flash Destroyer died with 11,494,069 total write-verify cycles. For a closer look at the failure, and the live stream viewing statistics, see the Flash Destroyer wrap up. It took three tries to get the USB Infrared Toy […]
Free PCB Sunday: Bus Pirate v3b
We go through a lot of prototype PCBs, and end up with lots of extras that we’ll never use. Every Sunday we give away a few professionally-made PCBs from one of our past or future projects, or a related prototype. Our PCBs are made through Seeed Studio’s Fusion board service. This week we’re giving away […]
“Logic Analyzer in a Day” Experts’ Challenge
Development board manufacturer Opal Kelly has invited three FPGA experts to design logic analyzers. Each participant has 8 to 10 hours to complete a design, the final designs will be posted online. The analyzer will be built with Opal Kelly’s modules and software development kit, but there might be some interesting takes on a common […]
Ril3y’s new Open Logic Sniffer case
Ril3y sent photos of a new laser-cut case for the Open Logic Sniffer. This case isn’t available yet, but we’ll keep you updated. Ril3y also sells a popular laser-cut case for the Bus Pirate. You can order the OLS at Seeed Studio for $45, including worldwide shipping. Don’t forget that Seeed now has probe cables […]
Flash Destroyer wrap up
11,494,069 is the final write-verify cycle count for the Flash Destroyer. Since the flash destruction ended on Tuesday, we’ve been playing with the EEPROM to understand how the failure behaves. We found a ticking data time bomb. Broken bits can linger at a recently written value for seconds before corrupting. Certain writes initially appear successful, which […]
Confessions of a prototyper: USB Infrared Toy
Confessions is a series where we share prototypes that didn’t quite work out. Read previous posts for the Bus Pirate, #twatch, and web platform here. The USB Infrared Toy took a few tries to get right. We’d like to fill you in on some things that happened behind the scenes before we released the v1 […]
Bus Pirate firmware v4.5
Firmware v4.5 for the Bus Pirate can be downloaded here. Changes include: New binary rawwire command for PIC programmer (Logic Sniffer rescue) OpenOCD support (may have been missing from v4.2) Fix to terminal input parser accepting out-of-range characters bug Other minor fixes This will be the last v4 release. The next release will be v5.0 […]
Flash Destroyer: Dead at 11.49 million
Some time between 8:00 and 9:00 UTC the Flash Destroyer reached 11.49 million write cycles and detected a verify error. The final count is 11,494,06X, the last digit is X because we won’t know what it is until we read it from the PIC over USB. The destruction started at 8:11 UTC on May 25, […]