I tried out a Programming IDE for the TI MSP-430 Experimenter Board today. Its a free and open source app called Energia. I downloaded it from the site. Didn't find it in my Fedora 14 Package Manager. I always look there first, before downloading Apps for Linux. Energia may be available in the Package Manager, on newer versions of Fedora though. Then I unpacked the "energia-0101E0009-linux.tgz" file. I extracted it to the "energia" directory that I made for the app to live and run in. I did some reading in the Online Documentation (see links below). I thought that I would have to run "aunt build", as they said. But, when I looked through the extracted files. And saw that there was an energia executable sh script file in the main directory. So, I clicked on it and the app ran, right off. So, no building needed in Fedora 14. I opened an ".ino" file. This is the file type that energia uses. I had downloaded one from here, http://www.element14.com/community/blogs/mirandasoft/2013/06/24/programming-the-msp430g2553-with-energia-in-linux, too (this is where I found out about energia). And I opened up one of the examples that came with energia. It looks like energia will be easy enough for a Beginner like me to use. When I opened up my first ".ino" file. Energia asked if I wanted to create a directory for this Workspace, or what ever they called it in energia. That's what it's called in Eclips and Anjuta and Code Composer Studio. All of which I have previously tried to use on the MSP-430. But, got errors that I didn't know how to deal with, in each of these Apps. They all are good IDE's, so I've read. But, I was stuck in them. Anyway, I knew this was necessary in most all of the IDE Apps that I have tried out. So, I said, yes. It opened up my Code in a new energia window and left the original window open and blank. Then I went back to the blank window and opened up one of the example ".ino" files. Energia did the same with this file. Like I said I'm a beginner to Programming IC's with an IDE App. I have only done this one time on my TI MSP-430 Texas Instruments 430Boost-CC110L BoosterPack featuring Anaren Integrated Radio (AIR) modules. With a Free Windows App, called FET-Pro430 in Windows XP. But, I run Fedora Linux as my main OS every day and would much prefer working in Fedora. So, I will have to do some more reading and get out my TI Fram MSP-EXP430FR5739 Experimenter Board and see what I can do with it. Check out Energia. I think you may like it...

Don

Energia for Linux Windows and Mac

Energia is an open-source electronics prototyping platform started by Robert Wessels in January of 2012 with the goal to bring the Wiring and Arduino framework to the Texas Instruments MSP430 based LaunchPad. Energia uses the mspgcc compiler by Peter Bigot and is based on the Wiring and Arduino framework. Energia includes an integrated development environment (IDE) that is based on Processing.

The foundation of Energia and Arduino is the Wiring framework that is developed by Hernando Barragan. The framework is thoughtfully created with designers and artists in mind to encourage a community where both beginners and experts from around the world share ideas, knowledge and their collective experience. The Energia team adopts the philosophy of learning by doing and strives to make it easy to work directly with the hardware.

Energia started out to bring the Wiring and Arduino framework to the Texas Instruments MSP430 LaunchPad. Texas Instruments offers a MSP430, Stellaris and C2000 LaunchPad. The LaunchPad is a low-cost microcontroller board that is made by Texas Instruments. The latest release of Energia supports the MSP-EXP430G2, MSP-EXP430FR5739 and Stellaris EK-LM4F120XL LaunchPads with support for the C2000 base LAUNCHXL-F28027 LaunchPad coming soon.

Together with Energia, LaunchPad can be used to develop interactive objects, taking inputs from a variety of switches or sensors, and controlling a variety of lights, motors, and other physical outputs. LaunchPad projects can be stand-alone (only run on the Target Board, i.e. your LaunchPad), or they can communicate with software running on your computer (Host PC).

More information about LaunchPad can be found on the TI site: www.ti.com/launchpad

Getting Started

To get started with Energia for your operating system (Energia works on Mac OS X, Linux and Windows), follow the instructions in the getting started guide.

Corrections, suggestions, and new documentation should be posted to the Forum.

The text of the Energia getting started guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License. Energia reference is based on Arduino reference. Code samples in the guide are released into the public domain.