I'm confused!

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1

I’m eager to learn more about Lynx, and I was excited to see @ Architect’s project on Code Share, but I don’t yet understand fully how to use the board. :frowning:

If I go to the Catalog, and select Lynx, I see some general info about the device and how it connects to a PC or other computer, but I don’t see anything about what drivers are needed, what other source code or DLLs are needed to use Gadgeteer modules, or any documents like a"Getting Started" guide.

Please update the catalog and support pages with more info.

Thanks

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Tutorials are coming in few days. Lynx works with many devices and operating system so documentation is going to be a bit time consuming.

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@ jasdev -

  1. First of all you will need to install the driver:

http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/D2XX.htm

  1. There are two ways to communicate with the Lynx

a. Virtual COM Port. Lynx is based on FTDI chip that has 4 Serial Ports. After you install the driver and if you plug-in Lynx you will see in Device Manager that you got 4 more COM ports. I haven’t explored that area yet, because option b provides more options to control the device

b. D2XX API. The api is provided through a DLL on windows (there are implementations for other platforms as well). This is standard DLL that you can link to in your c/c++ applications or use PInvoke from a .Net application. In fact, in my demo I am using managed wrapper dll that uses PInvoke to call D2XX API (provided by FTDI).

GHI has C++ code for pretty much all their modules and a high level FEZ Lynx class that internally uses D2XX API.

I am working on managed version of the wrapper that is more convenient to use then what FTDI provides. I will upload it on codeshare once it is done.

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@ Architect - can’t wait :clap:

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@ Architect, @ andre, @ Gus - Thanks for the quick responses.

So @ Architect, in your demo application, did you create a C# .NET Windows console application?

If you wanted to use a Gadgeteer module, wouldn’t you need to create a C++ application, so that you could reference the drivers on bitbucket.org?

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@ jasdev - Yes, that was a C# .NET Windows application.

You can use GHI C++ libraries if you want to use a module with Lynx right away.

You can also build your own version in C# and use with the wrapper DLL, or you can wait and use “somebody” else’s C# implementation soon :whistle:

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What’s the possibility that there will be NETMF Gadgeteer styled API?

Furthermore, what about code portability between Lynx and Cerb/Hydra/Spider/etc.?

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That would be ideal and I don’t see why it can’t be done that way.

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@ Architect - Thanks again. Yes, it would be greate if “someone” created a C# version of the module drivers :whistle:

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@ jasdev - We needed to get Beta Medusa docs in place. That’s done. Lynx coming very soon.

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Thanks @ Jeff

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Do I understand correctly that you can use the Lynx also while developing new Medusa libraries because it basically uses the same source code base for the modules? So therefore you can use the Lynx to debug your library code before running it on an actual Medusa mainboard? If so, can you use Visual Studio C++ to compile and debug this?

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@ KiwiSaner - yes you can do that while keeping in mind the speed difference.

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@ Gus - Thanks Gus. That is good news. I’ve been struggling trying to convert an existing Arduino library to conform more the Medusa example libraries and it will definitely be a big help… especially for someone like me that do not have a normal JTAG ICE.