Hack to work with msp430 on macosx

I got my hands on a msp430 launchpad to play around with it, and unluckily, the launchpad does not play nice with macosx.

So as every manual states it, you begin by getting the toolchain :

% sudo port install msp430-gcc msp430-binutils msp430-gdb msp430-libc msp430mcu

you can also do it using brew :

% cd `brew --prefix`
% git pull http://github.com/reid/homebrew.git
% brew install mspdebug llvm-msp430

then, if you run mspdebug rf2500 to connect to the launchpad, you’ll get a permission denied error. And no, that’s not a matter of permissions. OSX does not have the damn good USB module installed.

So here’s my quick and dirty solution to get something that just works :

On TI’s official driver’s page you can download the last compiled module (source code over here. You can download it and unzip it :

% wget http://e2e.ti.com/support/interface/digital_interface/m/videos__files/198722/download.aspx -O TIVCP_bin_2D00_1.2.1.zip
% unzip TIVCP_bin_2D00_1.2.1.zip TIVCP-OSX_binaries-1.2.1.dmg
% open TIVCP-OSX_binaries-1.2.1.dmg
% sudo cp -r /Volumes/TIVCP-OSX_binaries-1.2.1/TIVCPSerial.kext/ /System/Library/Extensions
% sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions
% sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/TIVCPSerial.kext/
% sudo chmod -R 755  /System/Library/Extensions/TIVCPSerial.kext/

Then you have to edit with your favorite editor the following file :

% vim /System/Library/Extensions/TIVCPSerial.kext/Contents/Info.plist

and insert into it :

     <key>ComIntf</key>
     <dict>
         <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
         <string>com.apple.kernel.iokit</string>
         <key>IOClass</key>
         <string>IOService</string>
         <key>IOProviderClass</key>
         <string>IOUSBInterface</string>
         <key>bConfigurationValue</key>
         <integer>1</integer>
         <key>bInterfaceNumber</key>
         <integer>0</integer>
         <key>idProduct</key>
         <integer>62514</integer>
         <key>idVendor</key>
         <integer>1105</integer>
     </dict>
     <key>DebugIntf</key>
     <dict>
         <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
         <string>com.apple.kernel.iokit</string>
         <key>IOClass</key>
         <string>IOService</string>
         <key>IOProviderClass</key>
         <string>IOUSBInterface</string>
         <key>bConfigurationValue</key>
         <integer>1</integer>
         <key>bInterfaceNumber</key>
         <integer>1</integer>
         <key>idProduct</key>
         <integer>62514</integer>
         <key>idVendor</key>
         <integer>1105</integer>
     </dict>
     <key>DeviceDriver</key>
     <dict>
         <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
         <string>com.apple.kernel.iokit</string>
         <key>IOClass</key>
         <string>IOService</string>
         <key>IOProviderClass</key>
         <string>IOUSBDevice</string>
         <key>bcdDevice</key>
         <integer>256</integer>
         <key>idProduct</key>
         <integer>62514</integer>
         <key>idVendor</key>
         <integer>1105</integer>
     </dict>

just before (note that it has to be inside the big that has IOKitPersonalities as key !) :

 </dict>
 <key>OSBundleLibraries</key>
 <dict>
     <key>com.apple.iokit.IOSerialFamily</key>
     <string>1.0.4</string>
     <key>com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily</key>
     <string>1.8</string>
     <key>com.apple.kpi.bsd</key>
     <string>8.0</string>
     <key>com.apple.kpi.iokit</key>
     <string>8.0</string>
     <key>com.apple.kpi.libkern</key>
     <string>8.0</string>
     <key>com.apple.kpi.mach</key>
     <string>8.0</string>
     <key>com.apple.kpi.unsupported</key>
     <string>8.0</string>
 </dict>

for older OSX systems (less than 10.4) you’ll have to do the following (but it won’t hurt if you do it anyway), but on newer systems, changing the date of a file inside /System/Library/Extensions will trigger it:

% kextcache -e

And then you’re done ! It worked for me directly without rebooting, but the other tutorials say you’d better reboot to get it work.

This hackish tutorial is mixing informations from two tutorials :

• The first at TI
• The second on mspdebug’s wiki

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