If you want a small BLE board with a QSPI NOR flash memory, a BMA400 low-power accelerometer, an STBC08 LiPo battery charger, and connectors for a variety of sensor modules then this board could be the right board for you.

The Katydid Wearable BLE Sensor Board is designed by Tlera Corp. The GPIOs are very carefully selected. JTAG SWD is on the pin header too!

Instant real-time programming with Forth.

Sources on GitHub (Katydid branch on Mecrisp-Cube)

Katydid to Firefly adaptor

Features

The standard Mecrisp-Cube features like RTOS, Filesystem, USB, etc.

• 63 KiB RAM Forth dictionary
• 384 KiB Flash Forth dictionary
• 160 KiB Flash for C code
• Internal Flash drive 0:, 16 MiB NOR Flash (similar to MicroSdBlocks#STM32H743_Nucleo_QSPI_W25Q128)
• microSD drive 1: (needs external adapter)
• Digital and analog pins
  • LED1 (blue), PE4
  • Button, PH3
  • Digital port pins: D0, D1, D10 to D15; module connector D2, D4, D5
  • Analog port pins: A0, A1; module connector A2
  • PWM: TIM1CH3 D0, TIM1CH2 D1
  • Input capture TIM2CH2 A1
  • Output compare TIM2CH1 D13, TIM2CH3 A2
  • EXTI: D2, D4, D10
• UART: D0 RX, D1 TX
• SPI: D13 SCK, D12 MISO, D11 MOSI (e.g. for display, memory)
• I2C: D14 SDA, D15 SCL (external peripherals e.g. pressure sensor)

For more BSP details see BoardSupportPackageKatydid.

Getting Started

These instructions will get you a copy of the project up and running on your local machine (STM32WB Katydid Wearable BLE Sensor Board) for development and testing purposes.

Prerequisites

• Katydid Wearable BLE Sensor Board with STM32WB55 MCU (Cortex ARM M4) runs at a 32 MHz (the Bluetooth stack runs on a Cortex ARM M0+ core). If you want to debug C and assembler programs you need an ST-Link debugger/programmer.
• Terminal emulator application for PC, e.g.:
  • PuTTY - Windows and Linux
  • Tera Term - Windows
  • Realterm - Windows
  • minicom, microcom, screen - Linux
  • Use the built in Eclipse console (but no LF)

Flash the Mecrisp-Cube binary (MecrispCubeKatydid.bin) or the util-binary (MecrispCubeKatydidUtil.bin, Forth utilities included e.g. disassembler, float operations, conditionals, etc) to the Katydid Board.

1. Connect the Katydid Board USB to the PC
2. Hold the BTN button (BOOTP Pin), push the nRST button, release the nRST button
3. Program the binary (MecrispCubeKatydid.bin or MecrispCubeKatydidUtil.bin) with the STMCubeProgrammer (select USB Device)
4. Reset or power cycle the Katydid board

Start the terminal emulator application on the PC. Check for the serial communication port (e.g. for Linux /dev/ttyACM0). I set the putty terminal configuration to

• Implicit CR in every LF
• Local echo: Auto
• Local line editing: Auto
• Keyboard Backspace: Control-H
• Keyboard Function: Keys VT100
• Remote character set: CP850

Mecrisp-Stellaris RA 2.5.4 by Matthias Koch.

Mecrisp-Cube 1.4.5 for STM32WB Katydid, 63/384  KiB RAM/FLASH dictionary (C) 2022 peter@spyr.ch
  * Firmware Package STM32Cube FW_WB V1.14.1, USB-CDC, BLE Stack 5.3 (C) 2022 STMicroelectronics
  * CMSIS-RTOS V2 FreeRTOS wrapper, FreeRTOS Kernel V10.3.1 (C) 2020 Amazon.com
  * FatFs for internal flash and microSD - Generic FAT fs module  R0.12c (C) 2017 ChaN
  * tiny vi - part of BusyBox (C) 2000, 2001 Sterling Huxley

include 0:/etc/rc.local
23 5 / .[CR] 4  ok.
: hello ." World" ;[CR]  ok.
hello[CR] World ok.

Special Functions on Startup

USB-CDC is the default console.

Button BTN

start STM bootloader

blue LED

the LED lights up during the initialization phase

Additional Tools and Local Filesystem

Populate a microSD with the contents of sdcard. Put the microSD into the uSD Card slot and reset or power cycle the board.

The directory should look like this:

ls -l 1:[CR]
drw-         0 2021-04-18T18:12:38 boot
drw-         0 2021-03-21T18:47:52 etc
drw-         0 2021-03-21T18:47:54 fsr
drw-         0 2021-03-21T18:47:54 home
drw-         0 2021-03-21T18:47:56 man
-rwa      7219 2021-01-08T19:42:36 README.md
ok.

You can use the local CLI commands like mkfs, mkdir and cp to create a filesystem on the serial flash and fill it with files and folders. But this is tedious job because I haven't yet implemented a recursive copy for MecrispCube. But there is prepared disk image (for details see MicroSdBlocks#Serial_Flash) on microSD and the tool dd. You can copy the disk image to the drive 0: (this takes about 8 Minutes):

dd 1:/boot/fd-16MiB.img 0:[CR]
 ok.
mount 0:[CR]
 ok.
ls 0:[CR]
man                     fsr                     README.md               boot
etc                     home
 ok.

The Mecrisp have some tools bundled in its distribution e.g. assembler, disassembler, dump, float. I put those tools and some more into the folder /fsr. With the "init.fs script" I compile my favorite ones into the flash directory (if you use the util-binary binary, these tools are already compiled in):

compiletoflash[CR]  ok.
include /etc/init.fs[CR]
init.fs Loading started
RAM Dictionary: 392991 KiB
utils.fs loading ...
conditional.fs loading ...
dump.fs loading ...
disassembler-m3.fs loading ...
float.fs loading ...
threads.fs loading ...
RAM Dictionary: 392981 KiB
init.fs finished  ok.

For example, the word disassember is available now:

see dump[CR]
080405F0: B500  push { lr }
080405F2: F7C2  bl  08002A3E  --> cr
080405F4: FA24
080405F6: CF08  ldmia r7 { r3 }
080405F8: F013  ands r2 r3 #F
080405FA: 020F
080405FC: F847  str r3 [ r7 #-4 ]!
080405FE: 3D04
08040600: 2A00  cmp r2 #0
08040602: D000  beq 08040606
08040604: 3610  adds r6 #10
08040606: CF08  ldmia r7 { r3 }
08040608: F847  str r6 [ r7 #-4 ]!

Installing Development Environment

A step by step series of examples that tell you how to get a development env running

Install the IDE STM32CubeIDE, it is Eclipse and GCC based. STM32CubeMX is included in the IDE, you need a stand alone installation only if you do not want to use the STM32CubeIDE.

Get the sources from github:

psi@homer:~> git clone --branch katydid https://github.com/spyren/Mecrisp-Cube
Klone nach 'Mecrisp-Cube' ...
remote: Enumerating objects: 1157, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (1157/1157), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (620/620), done.
remote: Total 3183 (delta 720), reused 934 (delta 525), pack-reused 2026
Empfange Objekte: 100% (3183/3183), 41.60 MiB | 6.96 MiB/s, Fertig.
Löse Unterschiede auf: 100% (2100/2100), Fertig.

Import the project into the IDE:

File -> Import -> General -> Existing Projects into Workspace -> Select root directory
Copy project into workspace
Browse to Mecrisp-Cube directory

Generate code from the STM32CubeMX MecrispCubeKatydid.ioc file:

Project -> Generate Code 

Restore changed source files

$ git status
{list of changed files}
$ git restore {files to restore} 

Select the Build Configuration (Debug if you want to debug the project) and Build the project:

Project -> Build Configurations -> Set Active -> Debug/Release 
Project -> Build Project

Extensions

Adafruit Feather Adaptor

https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-feather/feather-specification. You have to adapt the firmware for using the Feather pinout.

• Adafruit Quad Side-By-Side FeatherWing Kit with Headers, or FeatherWing Tripler
• 2 mm sockets and pins
• Magnet Wire, 30 AWG, Enameled Copper
• optional for debugging .050 Low Profile Tiger Eye IDC Ribbon Cable

JP1 Left, JP3 Right

Descr	Descr'	Feather	Feather'	Pin	SWD ST
D1	UART_TX	TX	GPIO1	JP1.2	14 (VCP_TX in)
D0	UART_RX	RX	GPIO0	JP1.3	13 (VCP_RX out)
SWDIO					4
SWDCLK					6
nRST		RESET		JP1.16	12
GND		GND		JP1.13	5, 7, 11
3.3V		3.3V		JP1.15	3
D14	SCL	SCL	GPIO15	JP3.11
D15	SDA	SDA	GPIO14	JP3.12
A0	D16	A0	GPIO16	JP1.12
A1	D17	A1	GPIO17	JP1.11
D10		GPIO10		JP3.7
D11	SPI_MOSI	MOSI	GPIO25	JP1.5
D12	SPI_MISO	MISO	GPIO24	JP1.4
D13	SPI_CLK	SCK	GPIO23	JP1.6