Installing and Connecting to the PDQ Board

This Chapter gets you started using your PDQ Board™ and Mosaic IDE Plus™. It guides you through the installation of the software, and introduces the editor, compiler, and terminal. It describes how to power up and talk with your single board computer (SBC).

The Mosaic IDE Plus™, which includes the GNU GCC C-language Compiler, a full-featured editor and communications terminal, is provided on an installation CD-ROM. To install it onto your PC, first insert the Installation CD-ROM into your CD Drive. If the installer does not launch automatically, browse to your computer’s CD drive using the ‘My Computer’ icon and double click on ‘Setup.exe’ to manually launch the installer.

We recommend that you use the default installation directory (“C:\MosaicPlus\”). If you wish to install into a different directory, you may type in any pathname provided that it does not contain any spaces. Please call us at (510) 790-8222 if you have any questions.

With the installation is complete, you are now ready to talk with your PDQ Board!

There are more detailed installation directions in Chapter 1 of the Mosaic IDE Plus users guide.

The PDQ Board is an SBC based on the IO-rich Freescale 9S12 (HCS12) microcontroller chip. It is ideal for instrument design and automation applications. Please familiarize yourself with the locations of the power and serial connectors as shown in Using Your Docking Panel Chapter. After finding them, follow these steps to turn on your system and start communicating:

First, connect to your computer:

1. Connect the female end of the 9-Pin serial communications cable to your computer terminal’s RS-232 serial communications port and the male end to the primary serial port on the Docking Panel. If you are not using a Docking Panel, but instead are directly connecting to the PDQ Board, you’ll need a 10-pin to dual DB-9F cable (Mosaic Part No. QED-COM-CABLE-9). You can use any of your PC’s COM ports. COM2 is usually available, but some PCs only have COM1 available. If your computer does not have an RS-232 serial port, low cost USB-to-RS-232 serial cables are available; contact Mosaic Industries for details.
2. Power up your PC computer or terminal.

3. It is required that you use Mosaic Terminal, the terminal program that comes with the Mosaic IDE Plus™. You can start the terminal by double clicking the Mosaic IDE Plus™ executable (the primary application of the Mosaic IDE Plus™) and clicking Tools→ Mosaic terminal. You can also start the terminal by double clicking the application “MosaicTerminal.exe”.

   The terminal will start using COM2 by default at a speed of 115200 baud, no parity, and 1 stop bit. Xon/Xoff flow control is enabled, and the file transfer options are set so that the terminal waits for a line-feed (^J) character before sending each line (this is very important).

   If your PC is set up to use a COM port other than COM2 Mosaic Terminal will respond with a warning box saying “Invalid port number”. If so, just go to the Mosaic Terminal menu item “Settings→ Comm→ Port” and choose another COM port.

4. Verify the baud rate of the Mosaic Terminal by going to “Settings→ Comm→ Baud Rate” and choosing 115200. This is the baud rate used to communicate with the PDQ Board. If the baud rate is incorrect, garbled characters or "square" ( □ ) characters may appear in the terminal when you try to communicate with the controller.
5. Plug the PDQ Board’s power supply into a 110 VAC outlet. European users will need a power transformer for changing European 220 VAC to 110 VAC. Insert the power supply output plug into the power jack on the Docking Panel and turn the power switch ON by moving the power switch towards the power jack.

   1. You should now see something similar to the following response:

      Coldstart
      XFlash->RAM pages loaded: Area 1: None 2: None 3: None  WP1: Off WP2: Off
      QED-Forth V6.xx
      DP: 0x1D8000  NP: 0x1D9000  VP: 0x2000  EEP: 0x680  HEAP: 0x188000 to 0x1CBFFF
      Segment: Kernel ID: 0x0 Code base: 0x0 Name base: 0x0  Type: Kernel

   2. If you hit the enter key while the cursor is in your terminal window you should see the PDQ Board respond with,

      ok

The serial communications response indicates that your PDQ Board is now working!

If no message appears on your terminal there’s something wrong, so:

1. Verify that power is being properly applied to the controller.
2. Verify that the serial cable is properly connected.
3. Check the terminal configurations of the Mosaic Terminal (using the menu item “Settings → Comm”), and recheck the communications properties of the Windows communications port.
4. Perform a special cleanup.

   Doing a Special Cleanup

   If you ever need to return your PDQ Board to its factory-new condition, just do a Special Cleanup: With the power on, install the shorting cap onto the jumper labeled Clean next to the reset button, press the reset button, then remove the jumper cap. This procedure will remove any application programs and reinitialize all operating system parameters to their factory-new condition.

If you still are having trouble, Contact us.

The Mosaic IDE Plus™ is the main software you will use to develop C programs for the PDQ Board. The IDE has a built in editor, project management system, and GNU C compiler.

See also → Your First C Program Using the Mosaic IDE Plus
FAQ, Frequently Asked Questions