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eCos News Archive


Latest news

The latest eCos news is located on the home page.

Archived news

April 1, 2012 STMicroelectronics Cortex-M STM32 F2 / F4 ports

eCosCentric Limited have contributed support for the Cortex-M STM32 F2 and F4 series of processors, along with board support for the STM3220G-EVAL and STM3240G-EVAL platforms. The port is only available from the CVS repository at this time. Further details are provided for the STM3220G-EVAL port here, and the STM3240G-EVAL port here.

March 30, 2012 Freescale Kinetis KwikStik port

Tomas Frydrych has contributed a port of eCos to the Freescale Kinetis KwikStik development board. The port is only available from the CVS repository at this time.

March 12, 2012 Actel SmartFusion port

Christophe Coutand has contributed a port of eCos to the Actel SmartFusion evaluation board. The contribution includes A2F200 variant support (ARM Cortex-M3), serial, ethernet, I2C, SPI and flash device drivers. It is only available from the CVS repository at this time.

October 30, 2011 Freescale Kinetis K40 and K60 ports

Ilija Kocho of SIvA doo has contributed ports of eCos to the Freescale Kinetis TWR-K40X256 and TWR-K60N512 development kits. The contribution includes Kinetis variant support (ARM Cortex-M4), serial, ethernet and wallclock device drivers. It is only available from the CVS repository at this time.

May 25, 2011 SPI flash device drivers

Christophe Coutand has contributed eCos device drivers for Atmel AT25DFxxx and Silicon Storage Technology SST25xx SPI flash parts. The drivers are only available from the CVS repository at this time.

May 19, 2011 eCos deployed on AMS-02

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) has been deployed at the International Space Station. AMS-02 has been described as "the ultimate space experiment" and runs eCos on its Main DAQ Computers (JMDC).

March 13, 2011 Olimex LPC1766-STK port

Ilija Kocho has contributed a port of eCos to the Olimex LPC1766-STK Development Board. The port includes serial, ethernet and wallclock device drivers. It is only available from the CVS repository at this time.

February 09, 2011 Stellaris LM3S811 port

Christophe Coutand has contributed a port of eCos to the Luminary Micro Stellaris LM3S811 Evaluation Board. The port includes ADC and I2C device drivers. It is only available from the CVS repository at this time.

November 12, 2010 USB mass storage function driver

Christophe Coutand has contributed a USB mass storage function driver. The driver has been tested with AT91SAM7X-EK and STM3210E-EVAL boards. It is only available from the CVS repository at this time.

October 27, 2010 STM32 USB slave driver

Chris Holgate has contributed a USB slave driver for the STMicroelectronics STM32 series of processors. The driver has been tested with the STM3210E-EVAL board. It is only available from the CVS repository at this time.

May 30, 2010 AT91 ADC driver

Christophe Coutand has contributed an ADC driver for the Atmel AT91 series of processors. The driver has been tested on AT91SAM7S and AT91SAM7X parts. It is only available from the CVS repository at this time.

January 26, 2010 lwIP 1.3.2 port

Simon Kallweit has contributed a port of lwIP 1.3.2 to eCos. lwIP is an implementation of the Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) which is focused on reducing memory requirements for embedded systems. The eCos port is fully integrated with the eCos I/O layer, enabling use with both ethernet and serial interfaces.

August 20, 2009 uSTL library port

Uwe Kindler has contributed a port of uSTL 1.3 to eCos. uSTL is a partial implementation of the C++ Standard Template Library (STL) which is optimised for minimal code size. The eCos port of uSTL includes configurable file stream support and complete integration of the uSTL test suite.

July 03, 2009 Object loader enhancements

Anthony Tonizzo and Gernot Zankl have contributed enhancements to the eCos object loader package. The enhancements support ARMv4T object relocation and the loading of objects directly from ROM (without a filesystem) respectively. The revised code is only available from the CVS repository at this time.

May 10, 2009 Public Domain Curses port

Sergei Gavrikov has contributed a port of PDCurses 3.4 to eCos. The contribution includes a PDCurses driver for eCos serial I/O, enabling eCos applications to present a text user interface on a remote terminal. The code is only available from the CVS repository at this time.

March 30, 2009 eCos 3.0 final release

The eCos 3.0 final release is now available for download. This stable release incorporates many recent contributions to the public eCos project including:

  • Cortex-M, FR30 and 68K/ColdFire architectural ports
  • CAN, I2C, SPI, framebuffer, disk and ADC infrastructure
  • Enhanced Flash infrastructure (flash v2)
  • FAT filesystem
  • PPP, SNTP client, VNC server, and enhanced HTTP server for FreeBSD TCP/IP stack
  • lwIP lightweight TCP/IP stack
  • USB serial function driver
  • Object loader
  • HAL and driver packages for many new processor variants, target platforms and peripheral devices

eCos 3.0 also delivers stable eCos configuration tools which extend host platform coverage to GTK+ 2.x on Linux and to Windows Vista.

Thank you to all those who supported the substantial testing effort preceding this release.

Please refer to the downloading and installation page for details of how to get started with eCos 3.0.

February 22, 2009 eCos 3.0 beta 1 release

The eCos 3.0 beta 1 release is now available for download. This release is intended for testing by all eCos developers and incorporates many contributions to the public eCos project which have been previously available via the CVS repository only. It also includes updated eCos configuration tools which extend host platform coverage to GTK+ 2.x on Linux and to Windows Vista. See the release announcement for further details.

November 21, 2008 ColdFire hardware support

eCosCentric has contributed architectural support for eCos on ColdFire processors from their eCosPro offering. The contribution includes platform-level support for the M5272C3 evaluation board, plus ethernet and serial drivers. The code is only available from the CVS repository at this time.

November 03, 2008 Cortex-M3 hardware support

eCosCentric has contributed architectural support for eCos on the ARM Cortex-M3 core. The contribution includes platform-level support for the STM3210E-EVAL evaluation board, STM32 flash and serial drivers, plus Linux- and Cygwin-hosted GNU toolchains. The code is only available from the CVS repository at this time. See the contribution announcement for further details.

October 08, 2008 Framebuffer infrastructure

eCosCentric has contributed framebuffer device infrastructure from their eCosPro offering to eCos. The code and documentation are only available from the CVS repository at this time.

August 09, 2008 ADC infrastructure

eCosCentric has contributed ADC (Analog to Digital Converter) device infrastructure from their eCosPro offering to eCos. The code and documentation are only available from the CVS repository at this time.

July 11, 2006 Host tools

eCosCentric has generated new unsupported snapshot builds of the eCos host tools that workaround an exception handling issue with Cygwin 1.5.19 and 1.5.20. Download and installation instructions are available.

April 20, 2005 I2C infrastructure

eCosCentric has contributed I2C (Inter-Integrated Circuit) bus infrastructure from their eCosPro offering to eCos. The code and documentation are only available from the CVS repository at this time.

August 24, 2004 SPI infrastructure

eCosCentric has contributed SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) bus infrastructure from their eCosPro offering to eCos. The code and documentation are only available from the CVS repository at this time.

April 14, 2004 PPP stack

eCosCentric has contributed a PPP stack based on FreeBSD source code. It is designed to be used in conjunction with the existing FreeBSD TCP/IP stack.

February 04, 2004 eCos and RedBoot training course

eCosCentric has announced a public eCos and RedBoot training course which will be delivered on a periodic basis. The first course will be held in Cambridge, UK, April 19-22, 2004.

January 13, 2004 Red Hat contributes eCos copyright to Free Software Foundation

Red Hat today announced their intention to transfer all their copyright in eCos to the Free Software Foundation. This will consolidate the legal standing of eCos, and is a great benefit to the eCos community.

As eCos transitions to becoming an FSF project, there will be a number of changes, especially to the copyright assignment process for new contributions among other things. Please bear with us during this transitional period as we make updates.

September 19, 2003 IBM PowerPC 405GP support

The PPC40x variant support has been improved, adding fairly complete support for the 405GP. Note: although the PC40x variant has been in our tree for years, it has not been used by any published platforms.

This is the first public platform to use the PPC40x framework is the new MOAB development board, from Test & Measurement Systems.

See Supported Hardware for more details.

August 19, 2003 Improved Motorola Power-QUICC2 support

The QUICC2 variant support has been reworked as mpc8xxx and should now be more flexible for platforms based on these new devices.

The first port to take advantage of this new layout is support for the new Analogue & Micro Rattler, which is outfitted with either a MPC8250 or MPC8270.

See Supported Hardware for more details.

May 20, 2003 eCos 2.0 final release

We are pleased to announce the availability of the eCos 2.0 final release. This is the first fully-packaged stable release since eCos 1.3.1 back in March 2000. Thank you to all those who helped in the push to make this release. There are many minor improvements to the eCos Configuration Tool in particular since the beta release and we recommend that all eCos developers switch to the latest version of this tool. Please refer to the downloading and installation page for details of how to get started with eCos 2.0. The complete release is also available on CD-ROM from eCosCentric.

Mar 17, 2003 eCos 2.0 beta release

We are pleased to announce the availability of the eCos 2.0 beta release. This fully-packaged release contains many of the recent net contributions which have previously been available by via anonymous CVS only. We have also created an installation tool which simplifies downloading and installation.

We need your help in evaluating and testing this beta release on a wide variety of hardware platforms. We have prepared a set of testing guidelines to assist you in providing the feedback we need. Thank you!

Feb 28, 2003 New eCos board ports

In recent months, eCos has been ported to a number of new platforms. Some of these were contributed and others made by the eCos maintainers. These new ports include:

  • Team ASA NPWR Linux Engine - Intel Xscale 80321
  • Microplex Printer Controller - Intel Xscale PXA250
  • NMI uE250 - Intel Xscale PXA250
  • Analogue & Micro Adder - PowerPC 850
  • Cogent CSB281 - PowerPC 8245
  • Motorola VADS - PowerPC 8260
  • IDT79S334A - MIPS based Integrated Communications Processor
See Supported Hardware for more details.

Feb 02, 2003 eCos meeting at FOSDEM 2003

There is to be an eCos session at FOSDEM 2003, taking place on Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th February at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Brussels, Europe). It will be attended by four of the eCos maintainers, and will be shortly after a presentation by Nick Garnett to the FOSDEM embedded track about eCos. More details are available from the messages to the eCos announce mailing list.

Dec 21, 2002

Embedded Software Development with eCos by Anthony J. Massa

Finally we have our first book on eCos, Embedded Software Development with eCos, published by Prentice Hall as part of the Bruce Perens Open Source Series.

Author Anthony J. Massa covers eCos architecture, installation, configuration, coding, deployment, and the entire ecos development platform, including support components. Extensive code examples and a full application case study demonstrate every key programming concept, including exceptions, interrupts, virtual vectors, threads, synchronization, networking, web connectivity, debug/bootstrap, and even porting eCos to new hardware.

This book can be found at any good technical book store, or alternatively can be ordered online directly from the publisher, from Barnes & Noble, from Amazon, or many other online book stores.

May 23, 2002 eCos v2 alpha code available from anonymous CVS

Red Hat has updated the anonymous CVS repository with the code for an alpha quality release of eCos v2.0. Information about the contents can be found in this mailing list post. As part of this, eCos will have a new licence in future. Read this mailing list post for more details.

A beta version of eCos v2.0 is being prepared.

April 3, 2002 lwIP ported to eCos

Jani Monoses at Astechnix SRL has announced an early port of the lwIP lightweight TCP/IP stack to eCos. An EPK is available.

January 3, 2002 eCos Porting Guide featured in Embedded.com

Anthony Massa has written an eCos Porting Guide article for the January 2002 issue of Embedded Systems Programming magazine.

October 12, 2001 3G LAB announce availability of eCos/M3 extensions

As part of the eCos/M3 (MobileMultiMedia) initiative 3G LAB have released the first draft of the M3 extensions for eCos. These extensions include support for ELF shared libraries, run-time linking, memory protection and partial POSIX process emulation among many other features.

More information and downloads are available from the 3G LAB eCos developer resources page.

August 1, 2001 Playstation 2 and Dreamcast port integration

Red Hat is in the process of integrating Yaegashi Takeshi's ports to the Sony Playstation 2 and Sega Dreamcast, as previously mentioned on the contributions page. Expect to see it soon!

July 31, 2001 AT91 EB40 port

eCos has now been enhanced with a port to the Atmel AT91-based EB40 evaluation board. This port, currently a beta, includes RedBoot support, and Flash and Serial drivers. Sources are available from anonymous CVS. More details including prebuilt RedBoot binaries are available here.

June 10, 2001 x86 HAL improvements and RedBoot support

The existing x86 support has been reorganized and the PC target has been enhanced with PCI and RedBoot support. Networking support for Intel EtherExpress Pro compatible network cards has been added, including downloading and debugging via RedBoot. The Linux synthetic target has been separated out into a separate HAL and also been improved in many ways. Sources are available from anonymous CVS.

June 1, 2001 eCos Configuration Tool 2 Alpha released!

Red Hat are pleased to announce an alpha release of the eCos Configuration Tool version 2.0.

This is a cross-platform version built using the wxWindows toolkit. The tool uses the GTK+ widget set on Linux, and the WIN32 API on Windows 9x, Windows NT and Windows 2000. It is similar to the MFC, Windows-only version but at present lacks a few of its features, such as the Memory Layout Tool and the ability to run tests from within the tool.

More information and downloads are available here.

May 18, 2001 Analogue & Micro PowerPC 860T "Viper" port

Both eCos and RedBoot have been ported to the Analogue & Micro PowerPC 860T Viper board, including Flash and Fast Ethernet support. Sources are available from anonymous CVS.

April 26, 2001 Bright Star Engineering commEngine port

eCos and RedBoot have been ported to the Bright Star Engineering commEngine StrongARM SA1110 board, including Flash, watchdog, serial, ethernet drivers and PCI support. Sources are available from anonymous CVS.

April 7, 2001 Site updated

We've given parts of this site a new look, particularly the Supported Hardware section, and added a new area dedicated to RedBoot. Let us know what you think!

April 6, 2001 New eCos and RedBoot ports

Again Red Hat and the eCos community have been working hard to deliver more new ports and features to eCos and RedBoot. Here's a highlight of new functionality we've added. More details can be found in the eCos NEWS file.

  • eCos and RedBoot ported to the Compaq iPAQ PocketPC. Try out our eCos Microwindows demo for the iPAQ! Support includes keypad, touch screen, watchdog, FLASH, PCMCIA and Compact Flash drivers. RedBoot includes support for booting ARM Linux. Derived from an initial port by Richard Panton of 3G Lab and enhanced significantly by Red Hat.
  • eCos/RedBoot port to the ARM Evaluator-7T. Currently beta quality.
  • eCos/RedBoot port to PMC-Sierra RM7000 Ocelot, including PCI, ethernet and FLASH support.
  • RedBoot ported to the MIPS Atlas eval board with MIPS32 4Kc or MIPS64 5Kc processor modules, including PCI, serial, ethernet and FLASH drivers.
  • RedBoot support for ARM PID/EPI Dev7/ EPI Dev9 targets.
  • Port added to the Cosmo CEB-V850/SB1
  • Compressed image support has been added to RedBoot
  • ROM based file system support has been added, contributed by Richard Panton of 3G Lab.
  • Generic FLASH drivers added for Intel FlashFile 28Fxxx, AMD AM29xxxxx, Atmel AT29C040 and Intel StrataFLASH
  • Watchdog driver for Intel SA11x0 StrongARM added.
February 15, 2001 Intel® Xscale[tm] IQ80310 port

A port to the Intel® XScale[tm] IQ80310 Software Development and Processor Evaluation Kit has been added.

The port includes flash and ethernet drivers, and support for RedBoot, Red Hat's bootstrap firmware. The status of the port is currently beta.

As an Open Source company, Red Hat has made these improvements available from the development repository via anonymous CVS including RedBoot documentation.

Tool binaries and sources are available from ftp://ftp.redhat.com/redhat/gnupro/ or (preferably) a mirror site.

February 13, 2001 USB slave support

Red Hat has added support for USB slave devices to eCos, the Embedded Configurable Operating System. This includes generic USB slave support, a device driver for the Intel StrongARM SA11x0 on-chip USB device, and an additional support package for developing USB-ethernet and similar peripherals.

These improvements are available from the development repository via anonymous CVS including documentation.

Septermber 18, 2000 Recent updates

Red Hat has recently added other significant features to eCos, currently only available from the anonymous CVS development repository.

Key additions to generic eCos functionality include:

  • EL/IX compatibility layer - POSIX 1003.1 threads and synchronization primitives (beta)
  • Plug-in filesystem and network stack support (including a sample RAM-based filesystem)
  • RedBoot ROM monitor permitting ethernet debugging and flash management (alpha)
  • SNMP support
  • PCMCIA and flash support

Support for the following new platforms and peripherals has also been added:

  • Intel StrongARM SA1110 Assabet evaluation board
  • Intel StrongARM SA1100 Brutus evaluation board port (beta)
  • NEC V850 architecture, with an initial platform port to the NEC CEB-v850/SA1
  • CqREEK SH7708 (SH3) board (contributed by Haruki Kashiwaya)
  • Hitachi SH7707A and SH7709A variants
  • PCMCIA and Compact Flash, including drivers for the ARM-Assabet board (beta)
  • Flash memory for Intel StrongARM EBSA285 and Cirrus Logic ARM EDB7xxx boards
  • Socket Communications Ethernet CF+ Card (tested on the Assabet board only)

The complete list of supported targets has been updated accordingly. A more detailed announcement of all these developments is available in the archives of the ecos-announce mailing list.