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Does anyone have experience using CCSv4 to program for the MSP430 chips? I know msp-gcc is out there, and I'm sort of kicking myself for not using it, but at this point I'm stuck with CCSv4. I was drawn in by the fact that it was built on Eclipse, but I'm uninspired by the level of library/header file support that exists. I've had very little luck in even getting the UART to work correctly, and I won't even go into my struggles with printf. Does anyone have any advice on making the most of CCSv4 for MSP430 work? Maybe it's just me and I haven't tapped into some awesome resource yet... (I've already seen the MSP code examples provided by TI for my MSP430 family, and I've signed up on TI's e2e community...)

flag	asked Jul 15 at 15:45 vicatcu 925●7

JustJeff · Answer 1 · 2010-07-15 17:42:44Z UTC

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I just got one of those $4.30 MSP-EXP430G2 boards, and, having worked with both Eclipse and CCSv3 (the full license version), I also downloaded CCSv4, thinking that would be the path with the easiest learning curve.

There may be some kind of tutorial on the MSP430 launchpad wiki, but I haven't found it yet. Ideally there should be a how-to that shows, starting from scratch, how to create a project and get it into the device. If I do find such a thing, I'll edit this post to try to include the correct link.

edited Jul 15 at 17:42

answered Jul 15 at 16:10

JustJeff♦
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	So those boards are shipping already ? My boards are backordered and the expected shipping date is early August :-( What's your first impression on the launchpad ? – JonathanD Jul 15 at 16:45
	@JonathanD: there was a mad scramble the day that hack-a-day provided the link to the TI eStore; it looked like their server went down from the traffic, so I tacked one on to an order I was making from digikey. But I see digikey is fresh out, now, too. Anyway, windows couldn't find a driver for the board until after I'd installed CCSv4. – JustJeff♦ Jul 15 at 17:35
	Yea, I feel like I've been really spoiled by how excellent the documentation of avr-gcc is, and it's like another world with TI's compiler - like I find myself unable to find a delay_ms utility function or anything like that... – vicatcu Jul 15 at 17:43

Leon Heller · Answer 2 · 2010-07-15 15:50:07Z UTC

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You have to pay for the software ($150 for a personal license) but I can recommend the Rowley Associates tools for the MSP430. I once tried Code Composer, but didn't like it at all.

answered Jul 15 at 15:50

Leon Heller♦
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	Yea, I'm not in a position to switch IDEs, but CCS costs more than that, I expected a lot more out of the box capability – vicatcu Jul 15 at 15:53
	there is a version that you can download for free, but the free version has a built-in limit on the size of the images it can produce. – JustJeff♦ Jul 15 at 16:34
	However, the code size limit is greater than the maximum amount of storage on those chips you get from the kit so you're only going to run into problems if/when you get some higher end MSP430s – pfyon Jul 15 at 19:54

Code Composer Studio v4 and MSP430 development

2 Answers