Jack Whitham - Virtual Lab

		JACK WHITHAM

		Home -> EMS Client


	On this page: EMS Client


	VL2 documentation: Introduction Administrating VL2 Authorisation File Board Server Board Server Hardware Debug Device Design Goals Downloads EMS Client Extending VL2 Mutual Exclusion Daemon PPC Linux for FX12 FPGAs Relay Shell Using VL2 vlab Module vlab Protocol vlabif Module vlabif Protocol vlabifhw

The EMS client is a complete example of a VL2 application, built using wxWidgets in addition to Twisted and the VL2 modules vlabif and vlab. The application communicates via VL2 with a hardware design on a Spartan 3E Starter Kit, a popular FPGA board that can be used for teaching. The hardware design includes vlabifhw and the debug device; this is normally extended by the user.

Two versions of this application exist. The first was written for the 2008 EMS course at York; this was partly rewritten to improve various capabilities for 2009. Following this, the EMS course was replaced with a longer embedded systems course named EDI. For the time being, the virtual lab does not feature in the new course.

The 2009 EMS client is still used for some project work. UoY students and staff can find it on this internal page. The 2008 client is not compatible with the protocols used by the new version and has therefore been withdrawn.

Features

The application and associated hardware have the following features:

Hardware built with the VL2-based component can either be used remotely (via the application) or locally (using the physical switches and ports on the board).
Bidirectional text-based communication is supported between the hardware and the user. Messages received are shown in a terminal window. The user can type in this window to send characters to hardware. It is also possible to upload binary files.
The hardware provides video RAM (256x192 pixels with 8 colours in the 2008 version, 320x200 pixels with 256 colours in the 2009 version). The software is able to download a copy of this memory and display it within the GUI. Using a simple compression scheme, the 2009 version is able to refresh at up to 10 frames per second - not bad, as the image data is being sent via a 500kbit/s serial connection.
The hardware has four switches, five push buttons and a rotary control. The user can operate any of them using the GUI.
The hardware has eight LEDs, also shown in the GUI.


		Copyright (C) Jack Whitham 1997-2011