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Install the Energia tools

The official IDE for the MSP430, MSP432, CC13xx, CC32xx and Tiva C LaunchPad boards is Energia. Since release 18, Energia is based on the Arduino 1.6.5 IDE, and features the Boards Manager and the Libraries Manager.

Warning

Energia is no longer maintained. The last release 1.8.10E23 was published in December 2019.

The official tools from Texas Instruments include Code Composer Studio , based on Eclipse, and the SimpleLink SDK.

Install

Install the Energia IDE

To install the LaunchPad boards,

  • Download and install Energia release 1.6.10E18 under the /Applications folder. Energia is the official IDE for the LaunchPad platform.

  • Launch it.

  • Define the path of the sketchbook folder in the menu Energia > Preferences > Sketchbook location.

  • Avoid spaces in the name and path of the sketchbook folder.

In this example, the sketchbook folder is /User/ReiVilo/Documents/Projects/Energia.

The Energia 1.6.10E18 IDE provides two procedures to manage additional boards and libraries.

For more information on installing Energia,

Some LaunchPad boards may require the installation of additional tools or the update of the firmware.

Energia manages two architectures: 16-bit MSP430 and 32-bit ARM for CC3200, MSP432 and Tiva C.

Install the additional boards

  • Call the menu Tools > Board > Boards Manager…

A new window lists all the boards available, already installed or ready for installation, based on a set of URLs.

  • Select the board and click on Install.

  • Click OK.

If the board isn’t listed, the URL needs to be added manually.

For more information on the installation of the additional boards on the Energia IDE,

Add URLs for new boards

The Boards Manager lists the boards based on a set of URLs. To add a new board, the relevant URL should be added. The URL corresponds to a JSON file.

https://www.adafruit.com/package_adafruit_index.json
  • Call the menu Energia > Preferences.

This is the preference window, with a list of URLs at Additional Boards Manager URLs.

  • Click on the button at the right of Additional Boards Manager URLs.

  • Paste the URL with the JSON file. There should be one URL per line.

  • Click OK.

  • Call the menu Tools > Board > Boards Manager…

Update the boards

Check and update the boards when new releases are available.

Before updating the board, make sure the new release is supported by emCode.

  • Call the menu Tools > Board > Boards Manager…

  • Set the Type to Upgradable.

The window displays all the boards to be updated.

  • Select the board and click on Update.

  • Once all boards are updated, click on Close.

Energia comes with only one architecture installed, the 16-bit MSP430G2. All the 32-bit architectures for the MSP432, CC13xx, CC32xx and Tiva C require a specific procedure detailed at Install the 32-bit LaunchPad boards.

  • Run Energia.

  • Call the menu File > Preferences.

  • Ensure the Additional boards manager URLs list includes

https://s3.amazonaws.com/energiaUS/packages/package_cc13x2_index.json
https:///s3.amazonaws.com/energiaUS/packages/package_msp432p_index.json
https://s3.amazonaws.com/energiaUS/packages/package_msp430_elf_GCC_index.json

For the Cortex-M based boards,

  • Download 10-2020-q4-major.

  • Unzip gcc-arm-none-eabi-10-2020-q4-major-x86_64-linux.tar.bz2

  • Place the files under ~/Projets/emCode/_energia15/packages/energia/tools/arm-none-eabi-gcc.

Check supported boards

This procedure has been tested successfully with the following boards:

  • Energia MSP432, CC13xx, CC32xx and Tiva C.

Install the device driver

All the boards require the prior installation of specific udev rules.

To install the device driver for the LaunchPad boards,

SUBSYSTEM=="usb",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device",ATTRS{idVendor}=="0403",ATTRS{idProduct}=="a6d0",MODE:="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device",ATTRS{idVendor}=="0403",ATTRS{idProduct}=="a6d1",MODE:="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device",ATTRS{idVendor}=="0403",ATTRS{idProduct}=="6010",MODE:="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device",ATTRS{idVendor}=="1cbe",ATTRS{idProduct}=="00fd",MODE:="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device",ATTRS{idVendor}=="1cbe",ATTRS{idProduct}=="00ff",MODE:="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device",ATTRS{idVendor}=="0451",ATTRS{idProduct}=="bef1",MODE:="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device",ATTRS{idVendor}=="0451",ATTRS{idProduct}=="bef2",MODE:="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device",ATTRS{idVendor}=="0451",ATTRS{idProduct}=="bef3",MODE:="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device",ATTRS{idVendor}=="0451",ATTRS{idProduct}=="bef4",MODE:="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device",ATTRS{idVendor}=="0451",ATTRS{idProduct}=="f432",MODE:="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb",ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device",ATTRS{idVendor}=="0d28",ATTRS{idProduct}=="0204",MODE:="0666"
KERNEL=="hidraw*",ATTRS{busnum}=="*",ATTRS{idVendor}=="0d28",ATTRS{idProduct}=="0204",MODE:="0666"
ATTRS{idVendor}=="0451",ATTRS{idProduct}=="bef0",ENV{ID_MM_DEVICE_IGNORE}="1"
ATTRS{idVendor}=="0c55",ATTRS{idProduct}=="0220",ENV{ID_MM_DEVICE_IGNORE}="1"
KERNEL=="ttyACM[0-9]*",MODE:="0666"

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0451", ATTRS{idProduct}=="c32a", MODE="0660", GROUP="dialout", RUN+="/sbin/modprobe ftdi-sio" RUN+="/bin/sh -c '/bin/echo 0451 c32a > /sys/bus/usb-serial/drivers/ftdi_sio/new_id'"

  • Open a Terminal window.

  • Launch on the folder

sudo mv /71-ti-permissions.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/
  • Relaunch the device service with
sudo service udev restart

Develop

Starting release 1.6.10E18, the Energia IDE includes a Libraries Manager for downloading and installing additional libraries. It relies on a list of URLs managed centrally by Energia.

Install additional libraries

  • Call the menu Sketch > Include Library > Manage Libraries…

A new window lists all the libraries available, already installed or ready for installation.

  • Select the library and click on Install.

  • Click OK.

For more information on the installation of the additional boards on the Energia IDE,

Upload

The Energia IDE includes DSLite, a tool to upload the binary to the LaunchPad.

As an alternative, UniFlash provide an updated GUI.

For more information,

Debug

Debugging has been tested successfully on the Experimenter Board MSP430FR5739 and most of the LaunchPad boards, including MSP430G2, MSP430F5529, LM4F120 Stellaris now TM4C123 Tiva C, CC3200 WiFi, CC3220 WiFi, MSP432, CC13x0, CC13x2.

The LaunchPad MSP430G2 and MSP430F5529 and the Experimenter Board MSP430FR5739 require no additional tool as the debugger, mspdebug, is already provided by the Energia IDE.

The LaunchPad LM4F120 Stellaris now TM4C123 Tiva C, the LaunchPad TM4C129 Ethernet require the installation of an additional tool, namely OpenOCD.

Most of the boards from the SimpleLink portfolio, including the MSP432, CC32xx, CC26xx and CC13xx LaunchPad boards, feature the XDS110 programmer-debugger. Although the default programmer is DSLite, the XDS110 accepts the open-source OpenOCD utility. OpenOCD brings additional features, like selecting one board among multiple connected, as well as debugging.

OpenOCD can be installed with Homebrew or built from source code.

Use default OpenOCD

The Energia package installs OpenOCD release 0.10.0+dev.

Install OpenOCD from distribution

Install OpenOCD from the Linux distribution with 

sudo apt install openocd

Build OpenOCD from source code

Some LaunchPad boards require a specific installation of OpenOCD. This is done by specifying options at build-time.

For example, the CC3200 LaunchPad requires the --enable-ft2232_libftdi --enable-stlink options with OpenOCD version 0.9.0, but no longer with OpenOCD version 0.10.0.

Alternatively, to build OpenOCD from source code,

For more information on the configuration of OpenOCD,

  • Please refer to the OpenOCD documentation and to the websites of the respective manufacturers of the boards.

For more information on the installation of OpenOCD for the LaunchPad CC3200,

For more information on how to build and install OpenOCD from source code,

All the LaunchPad boards feature a built-in hardware debugger.