As you all know, I was flashing my Firebee (the FPGA s19 file) using the flashing tool and the flashing tool crashed. This left me with a dead FB that did nothing when I turned it on. I was told that I had to flash the FB externally using a PC and using a program called CF Flashed, which was mentioned in some FB information files as the only other way to flash the FB other than the flashing tool that runs on the FB. I also needed some kind of hardware, a BDM cable, that would connect the FB to the PC using either the USB or the parallel port of the PC. Most people, I heard, were using a TBLCF device. This was fairly cheap, about $20-$40 I think. However, no one could tell me where to get one.
I eventually found pictures and a schematic of the TBLCF, but I am not skilled in making this so I went a more expensive route. P&E Micro makes a piece of hardware called a Multilink Universal for about $200 and that is what I went with. It looks like this:
As you see it has many ports including the 26 pin port that is needed to connect it to the BDM port of the FB. In case you do not know, as I did when I started all this, the BDM interface is located just under the MC5474 chip and just above the PCI interface. With the MLU you also get the all the ribbon cables needed to connect it to the board you are trying to debug. You also get the USB cable to connect it to the PC. There is another version, the Multilink ACP for only $140, but it does not have nearly as more ports. Then there is the Multilink FX which has alot more features and is super fast for $400.
The next thing to do where to get CF Flasher. I downloaded the latest version which is 3.1. I was also told that CFF will only work on a PC with Windows XP. I confirmed this by looking in the help section of CFF, so I picked up a XP laptop for only $60. The start up screen for CFF look lik this:
Before you do anything, you have to configure your target. When I tried to do that, there were not any choices that I would think that would work. So L asked for some help from Didier M. from Aniplay fame. He sent me a zipped file that contained CF Flasher, only this one had a Firebee target configuration as you can see here:
You can also see in the above screenshot that I also chose, under BDM Configuration, the PE_USB_ML. There is also a choice of the PE_LPT if you go the parallel route and a choice H_TBLCF (there is a file upgrade for this that I found).
Okay, I hooked up everything, ran CF Flasher and then ran into problems. I kept getting an error from CF Flasher saying that it could not put the MC5474 chip into some state. I posted a question on the P&E Forums and they directed me to patch for CFF that was suppose to fix any problems between the MLU and CFF. This patch also made CFF compatible with Win7 (tested this and CFF worked). Even with the patch installed I still kept getting the some error from CFF. I went to the P&E Forums again and they directed me to a file that updated the MLU firmware and that is what did it. Everything worked great and I was able to flash the FB. If you are connected and if everything is working like it should, when you click on "View Flash Info", you will get something that looks this:
All there is do to next is to pick a file to flash and click "Program"
As you see I also loaded in a hex file. The CFF instruction say only s19 and bin files can be loaded, but hex files can also be used. When you search for a file use the "*.*" and the hex file will show up. After it loads in, it will have the incorrect starting position. You MUST click on the "S-Record" even though it looks like it is already chosen. After you click this, you will see the "Starts at" position change. Then you can click "Program" and it should start flashing. I flashed in this order: FPGA, BAS, Firetos, EmuTOS.
When everything is hooked up and working both lights on the MLU should be on. The blue light is on when you have a connection with the PC and the yellow/orange is on when the MLU is getting power from the board you it connected to.
After everything is flashed. Turn off and disconnect everything. Then turn on the FB and it should boot back up.
the PC I used worked with Win 10.
