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Page Index

  1. Main Source directory - All the software visible in one place.
  2. Tools - The various software and tools we use in this project.
  3. SC Software -
  4. Host & XPRESS Compiler -
  5. COMM-Link Software -
  6. PIC & Mini-Link software -
  7. HCS II FPGA software -
  8. HCS_C Software -
  9. HCS_C Development environment -
  10. HCS_C Hardware -
  11. 2nd Generation COMM-Links -
  12. Other software -
  13. Full Index - Full index of all the available software on this site.
  14. HCS II SC Source code - this is a temporary section until I'm done with cleanup (I merged the Tools & Software pages).
  15. HCS II SC Source Links - this is a temporary section until I'm done with cleanup (I merged the Tools & Software pages).

Software & Tools


Note: Some of the source files are not yet available (I'm still working on it).

The original development environment for the HCS II was DOS and goes back to 1985! Quite an effort was put in to pull together all the tools that were used to build the HCS II, the COMM-Links and the DOS application. Luckily we somehow managed to find and purchase almost all the tools we needed to support the HCS II.

Today we have a more flexible choice in our development enviroment. Most of the tools we need can be replaced by Open Source tools or run under DOS emulator (for Linux x86) or a command line (under Windows). For other OS's there are project like DOSBox to emulate a DOS environment.

The HCS II's XPRESS compiler was written in C and used Borland's Turbo C 2.0 or Boland C 2.0 (sorry I can't remember which one is the correct one). Borland has been kind enough to allow people to download these tools free so we can still build the compiler (try this link). Thank you Borland!. Also we put some effort into making it more portable so that it compiles correctly under the GNU compiler.

The HCS II's Host program (a DOS GUI) was also written in C but has not been ported to the GNU compiler because of the use of Borland/DOS specific libraries not found under Unix (Window placement & mouse routines).

HCS II SC software

The HCS II SC's firware was written in Z180 assembly language and we put quite an effort into moving it over to work properly under AS.

HCS II Host & XPRESS Compile software

DOS Host software, WINHost and JHost

COMM-Link software

Ed Nisley wrote the firmware for the 8051 based COMM-Links in C. The C compiler he used is still produced and can be purchased at Dunfield Development Systems.

Here's the SDCC C compiler for the Z80, 8031/8051 family of chips, the AVR and PIC 14 bit processors. When it comes to programming nothing beats a high level language for getting it started quickly. No effort has been made to port the COMM-Link code over to SDCC yet.

PIC & Mini-Link software

During Mike Baptiste's reign he put forth quite a few useful replacements for the COMM-Links, based on Microchip's flash PIC family of processors. Mike has been gracious enough to open the code as Open Source. All the code is in C and uses the C compiler from CCS.

HCS II FPGA software

Robert Morris did a 3 part article (Circuit Cellar March 2003 #152 - May 2003 #154)on upgrading the HCS II with an FPGA & XPRESS V5.0

HCS_C software

With the HCS_C we are trying to stick to Open Source software (ECOS, gcc, g++, gdb etc.) so that we don't have to spend a whole lot of money on the tools (most of the money required is going into the hardware which is not free). Even the JTAG debugging interface is cheap by using the simple design found on Bob Morrison's web page. Make sure you get GCC V3.2.1 or better as we're going to need to make use of the -mthumb (ARM's 16 bit instructions) for size of the code. More links to follow on how to compile your own GNU environment. Windows users please be sure to download the Cygwin enviroment.

HCS_C Development environment

OK, this gets a bit complex (to say the least) since the HCS_C Supervisory Controller (SC) is made up of the ARM cpu and FPGA (and various memory and I/O). The entire HCS_C system is made up of the SC, I/O, networked modules and a PC to act as a GUI. This requires quite a bit of software to create the entire system and some of it is inherited from the original HCS II.

Here is the currently list of software we expect to use:

Here's a list of the software used to develope the Host, the XPRESS Compiler, the HCS II and the comm-links:

This is not to say that others can't develop with different tools or languages. These are more guidelines to make the transition of getting started easier. As you can see above there is a lot of software and trying to stay compatible is difficult (but not impossible).

Hopefully I'll have complete packages and instructions to use what we need from above.

HCS_C hardware

Bob Morrison has put a lot of time an effort into the HCS II.V (based on the Zilog Z380 which they discontinued, argh!) and the HCS_C. All the information about how to go about building the HCS_C can be found on Bob's Zeta Engineering site. I'll make an effort to clean up his pages so that they're more presentable. What his pages lack in beauty bis hardware more than makes up for.

2nd Generation COMM-Links

No work has yet begun on the second generation COMM-Links. What we want to see is high speed COMM-Links with a new protocol to support a few more features. This generation is still connected via the RS485 network. We'd like to see the 3rd generation COMM-Links be TCP/IP attached but that's get way in front of ourselves.

Other software

Initially we didn't have all the source code to the SC's firmware and needed to disassemble the code and comment it by hand. After doing this Mike Baptiste was able to find the source code to the latest 3.6x code. Some more work needs to be done on the 4.00 code but having the original code was a major step forward! This is the disassembler used to do the initial work.

Full Software Index

Here's the full index to all the software on these pages:

Source Code Links

Vesion 4.00 - for SC's with the S180 upgrade processor.


Version 3.60 - for SC's with the default Z180 processor.


Source Code Links

Vesion 4.00 - for SC's with the S180 upgrade processor.


Version 3.60 - for SC's with the default Z180 processor.


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