Nico is, in a nutshell, a cross-platform terminal program meant for the Neon816. In addition to supporting the serial port of the Neon816 for use with the original firmware and OF816, Nico supports the Neon816 debug interface in the same window, allowing the user to interact with both the running software and the debug interface in a convenient manner.
Nico is a Curses-based terminal program written in Go.
- ANSI terminal emulation.
- Many keyboard shortcuts.
- Compiles on MacOS X and Linux, and probably Windows.
- Character pacing to avoid overrunning the Neon816's buffers when pasting text.
You will need Go and the the following libraries:
github.com/mgcaret/goncursesgithub.com/jacobsa/go-serial/serialgithub.com/marcinbor85/gohex
Additionally you will need NCurses and the appropriate development headers/libraries for NCurses and its dependencies.
If everything is right, go build in the project directory should
give you a nico binary.
Alternatively, you may try the build.sh script, which will build
static binaries where supported, and will attempt to work around any
of the caveats listed below.
When using Homebrew's ncurses, installing the goncurses library
and/or building Nico may fail. If it does, set LIBRARY_PATH, e.g.:
export LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/Cellar/ncurses/6.2/lib
The build.sh script attempts to automatically compile with the above
variables set.
nico [options] <console-device> [<debug-device>]
Where the devices are typically serial ports, however may also be
Unix domain sockets (for development purposes). Additionally,
console-device may be test which will execute Nico in a
test/demo mode (and debug-device is ignored).
-console-baud <rate>
Set console baud (default 9600)
-debug-baud <rate>
Set console baud (default 57600)
-no-debug
Disable debug/command interface entirely, leaving the whole screen for the console.
Nico will start up quickly and draw the screen. Unless -no-debug
was given on the command line, the display is divided by a
horizontal line. Above the line is the ANSI terminal interface, which
is connected to console-device, and below is the debug/command
interface. The debug/command interface will be of limited utility if
debug-device was not specified, and --no-debug will omit it.
The bottom line of the debug/command interface is the command-line input.
Both interfaces accept several keystrokes, documented further below.
Depending on your system configuration, you may move the cursor from the terminal interface and the command-line input with one of the following keystrokes or sequences: Alt+Tab, F2, or ^] then Tab.
The ANSI terminal interface sends each character typed to the
console-device, and displays characters and control sequences
that it receives from the console-device.
The debug/command interface accepts commands. If debug-device
was specified, this includes all of the commands supported by
Lenore Byron's neonprog distributed for the Neon816, plus
some additional commands.
quit - quit the program
help - small help text for keyboard shortcuts.
resync - discards bytes in the read buffer, use when commands
like read return parse errors, or if you power-cycle your Neon.
mapram - map bank $80 RAM to bank $00
read <addr>... - read $40 bytes of memory at the given address(es)
write <addr> <byte>... - write byte(s) to the given address
stop - stop execution
step - single-step the PCU
cont, go - continue execution
reset - reset the system
run - reset and begin execution
program <hex-file> - write Intel hex file data to RAM
verify <hex-file> - verify programmed Intel hex file
chipid - identify the flash ROM chip (stops CPU, use cont or go to
resume)
flash <hex-file> - Erase ROM and flash with Intel Hex file data,
the addresses of the hex file are forced into the flash ROM range.
verify-rom <hex-file> - verify flashed Intel hex file
erase - Erase ROM.
Note: Your system or terminal program may intercept some key combinations listed below. In many cases, multiple combinations perform the same function so you should be able to find one that works if you cannot reconfigure the intercepting software.
Ctrl+] - Start command key. The following command keys may follow:
- Tab - swap between terminal and debug/command interfaces
- c - clear terminal portion
- d - clear debug/command portion
- h - pop some help text into debug interface
- q - quit the program
- Esc - cancel command
If you let it time out or press Ctrl+] again while in the terminal interface, it will send it through to the Neon816.
F1 - same as Ctrl+], h
F2, Alt+Tab - swap between terminal and debug/command interfaces.
F10 - quit program
If debug-device was specified:
Alt+S - send 'stop' command
Alt+Space - send 'step' command.
Alt+G - send 'go'/'cont' command
Alt+R - send 'run' command
Alt+` - send 'reset' command
The arrow keys and Home/End keys do what they normally do.
Bash-style cursor movement is also available.
CANCEL (if your keyboard has it) - clear input
Ctrl+A move to the beginning
Ctrl+E move to the end
Ctrl+K clear input to the right of the cursor
Ctrl+L clear debug/command output area
CLEAR, Ctrl+X - if the cursor is at right end of the line, clear the line if in the middle, clear to the right of the cursor.
DELETE CHAR, Ctrl+D - delete the character under the cursor
Alt+B - go back a word
Alt+F - go forward a word
Ctrl+Y, Alt+Enter - send the current contents of the debug input
to console-device and clear the input.
Alt+Y - send the current contents of the debug input
to console-device and leave the input untouched.
Nico doesn't currently support resizing its window. If you do, things might get weird.
The debug interface sometimes gets confused if you power off and then
on the Neon816 when port is open. This manifests as many errors being
reported, or data from read being out of known alignment (often by
1/2 byte). If this happes, execute the resync debug command.
Nico sometimes exits and leaves the terminal in raw mode. Unix/Linux
systems provide the reset command to fix this.