help me with that bootloader

[albertinjo]

Hello

I really like gamebuino, I built my own on a breadboard, it is working great. So now I tried burning the custom gamebuino bootloader (downloaded from the wiki) on my arduino nano, and after 2 hours I finally did it.

The bootloader is working, but I do not know how to prepare my SD card. The bootloader says no sd card or no LOADER.hex. Ifigured out I need a FAT16 sd card, so do I need to buy a old 2gb fat16 card, or is there a way to convert my 8gb fat32 card to fat16 (I know fat16 supports only 2gb or less, but I would not mind it). Also I tried the bootloader with my fat32 card and it just freezes itself.

By the way my breadboardbuino is running at 5v so I connect my sd card by a 5v sd card slot module I bought, I suppose breadboardbuino would not mind it.

http://www.dx.com/p/sd-card-module-slot ... mcu-133709

Thanks!

[rodot]

Hello!
Sadly, the SD card have to be FAT16 formatted, and 2GB max
On the SD card socket you show we can see a 3.3V regulator and a bunch of resistors, so you can use it at 5V without problem, it does the voltage adaptation.
Good luck with your breadboardbuino

[hrangan]

Try GParted ( gparted.org ), or any other partitioning tool.

I found that creating 2 partitions on a flash drive causes the computer to pick up only the first partition sometimes. This might help you. You could create a 2GB FAT16 partition, and leave the rest unused.

[rodot]

I already tried, it doesn't work. Sorry

[albertinjo]

Thanks for your reply!

I managed to get a 2gb fat16 SD card from an old cell phone, formated it, copied LOADER.hex and BLINK.hex files found in your library.

When I started my breadboarduino (and held down the C button pressed) the bootloader searched for LOADER.hex file (I guess). Then the baclight turned off and the screen was dead. After restarting the microcontoller I realised it was blank, with no program loaded (it only had the bootloader installed).

I plugged it in my pc and flashed a gamebuino game (alien killer) on my microcontroller again (arduino nano v3.0). It was working, but when I tried to load LOADER.hex from the SD card, the program from microcontrollers flash memory magically erased himself again.

Please help me, I would really like to make my own gamebuino, but I cant get that bootloader working.

Should I power my arduino with 3.3v and try connecting the SD card directly to microcontroller pins, or there is a software problem.

Thanks.

[rodot]

Well, the bootloader is still under development, my advice would be to stick to USB uploading until it's a stable version.
If you still want to try the SD loader...

Download the latest version of the bootloader and the Gamebuino library on Github. Read the README.TXT from the bootloader to know how to install it.
Format your SD card (2GB of less) in FAT16. Put all the .HEX files from GitHub/bootloader/SDFiles on the card.
Upload any game from GitHub/Library/examples through the USB port. When your are in the startup screen, press C. It should Display "Loading...", then restart display the loader's startup screen. Press A to start the launcher and browse the SD card. Select a .HEX file and it will display "Loading game".

Did you use the same pinout than on the Gamebuino's schematics?

Gamebuino's github: https://github.com/Rodot/Gamebuino

[albertinjo]

I am using a 2gb fat 16 sd card from an old mobile phone, I carefully formatted it to fat 16, putt LOADER.hex and BLINK.hex files on it.

I succesfully managed to burn a gamebuino bootloader on my arduino nano v3.0, I flashed the loader.ino sketch to my arduino.
When I start my gamebuino, it says Insert SD card and restart, or there is a blank screen with one line and a bettery icon it top right corner (see pictures below, I suppose it thinks there are no files on SD card).
I checked my connections three times, I followed your shematics (by the way they are really pretty, which program did you use) then powered my arduino at 3.3v and connected the sd card directly to arduino pins (I soldered some wires to a microSD to SD card adapter).
It also did not work.
I ran out of ideas, but I see you made some changes to the library on github. I was using the first version of bootloader you uploaded to github. I am going to update my bootloader and try again because I like gamebuino very much.

If that doesnt work I will stick to USB uploading until it's a stable version.
I included some pictures just to show off.

Thanks for your patience.
I see you added Conway's Game of Life, that is awsome.

[rodot]

The loader with the line on top is an old version based on the Arduino SD library. The last version uses tinyFAT. I don't know where you got it but it's an outdated version.
For now everything is in alpha version and changing everyday, you should not spend too much time troubleshooting the bootloader. Also it doesn't seem to work with every SD card.
The conway's game of life is just a quick implementation, I'm going to change it for cells' growth rate to be influenced by the amount of ambient light (they'll tend to hibernate when it dark and grow when there is a lot of light).
Nice breadboard-buino, I look forward seeing your games

[Myndale]

Great breadboard albertinjo! As Rodot has pointed out the boot loader is being changed and re-tested almost every day, from now on I'll be putting the latest version on the boot loader Wiki page (latest version is r7). Getting it working on the official hardware is my top priority, but making sure it works on bread-boarded versions of Gamebuino is also good for the project as a whole so if you keep posting updates here then I'll continue to monitor this thread and hopefully help you get it working on your circuit asap.

[albertinjo]

Thanks, I will do my best to make it work.