Objective:
Construct a C program that controls the UART, and is capable of displaying strings. Echo characters received on the UART to the LCD screen
Outcome:
A message should print on the terminal program (i.e. Hyper Terminal) attached to the DE2 Kit. Keystrokes from the terminal should appear in the LCD display.
Procedure:
Step 1: Log into the computer in the lab using your credentials.
Step 2: Copy the files you saved last week back into the working directory on the computer.
Step 3: Start Quartus II and download the same image that you did last week.
Refer back to last week's lab notes if you are foggy. The LED's have stopped blinking now. Thanks!
Step 4: Open up the NIOS II IDE, and select your workspace.
Step 5: Copy the supplied file 'uart.c' into your project workspace using the IDE to drag and drop it from the disk into the project.
Step 6: Fill in the functions in the supplied template
Step 7: Construct a main routine that does the following steps:
- Initializes the LCD
- Initializes the UART
- Prints a message on the UART
- Prints a message on the LCD
- Sets the cursor on the LCD to the beginning of the second line (LCDGotoXY(0,1))
- Enters a while loop that
- Reads a character from the UART port
- Prints the character on the LCD screen
Step 8:Connect 9-pin serial cable to RS-232 port in DE2 pack
Step 9: Open hyper terminal window in PC. Configure properties based on the UART core configuration information using SOPC. Serial port parameters configuration could be 115200, N, 8, 1 with no flow control (i.e. no handshaking).
Step 10: Get the instructor over to verify functionality
Step 11: Adventurous students may wish to make the LCD cursor wrap back to the first column on the display if more than 16 characters are typed.
Step 12: Extra adventurous students may implement vertical scrolling of the LCD when the cursor reaches the end of the line. (WARNING: requires an abstraction of the display into an array, and writing functions that update the real display from the virtual one.)