[haiku-development] Re: My offer to Haiku Inc. (Logic Analyzer gear)
- From: "Adrien Destugues" <pulkomandy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2016 11:23:52 +0000
10 octobre 2016 12:53 "miqlas" <miqlas@xxxxxxxxx> a écrit:
There was a talk yesterday about logic analyzer tools on IRC. Kallisti
told me the products from https://www.saleae.com are pretty decent
and could be useful in driver developement.
I would like to make an offer for Haiku Inc:
I'll buy a device and donate it to Haiku Inc., so every developer, who
needs it can get it to get the work done.
Well, first let's explain what it does for people who don't usually develop
drivers.
A logic analyzer is a tool that monitors digital signals over time. One can
connect it to output ports of the hardware being debugged, in order to see
what's going on. With this, it's possible to see what happens at the low level
and debug things more easily. Without any tools like that, driver development
is done "in the dark". You can only see that something fully works, or doesn't
work at all.
Saleae offer is to have a reasonably priced hardware, by use of a PC with their
analysis software. The drawback, compared to more expansive solutions, is the
relatively limited number of IO pins (up to 16 on their larger model) and
bandwidth (limited by the USB or USB3 bus).
The smaller model ("Logic 4") can be used to debug I2C, SPI, RS232, and other
serial busses. It is limited to 12 million samples per second, so anything with
a clock faster than 12MHz won't be analyzable with it (for example, USB
(48MHz), DVI (25 to 165MHz depending on resolution) or HDMI video).
I don't know if such low-level debugging is often needed. But, when you need to
get down to it, it surely is some help to be able to see some of the logic
signals.
What i'd like to know first:
- Which model should i buy? There is plenty different ones, and i have
no experience with stuff like this.
It depends what will be done with it.
- Where should i send it? To Haiku Inc. or directly to a developer?
Probably to devs, if there is someone interested (that doesn't prevent the
device being formally owned by Haiku, inc - and devs can pass it to each other
as needed).
- Is it the best way to support the driver developement? Instead logic
analyzer i can donate money too.
Shipping hardware that doesn't work to the devs may nudge them into writing
more drivers. But as usual, the issue with this will be the lack of time.
Please, let me know if you are working on driver developement and if a
gear like this would be useful in your work.
Or let me know if you have a better idea.
Thanks and keep up this good work Guys!
Thanks for your support!
--
Adrien.
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