Suite56 was a disjointed conglomeration of different 56300 code
generation utilities. It was nowhere near even a partial development
environment as there were no editing or project management/build
facilities - each developer had to create his own build and project
management scripts.
In contrast, Symphony Studio is a more complete IDE that includes a
built-in source highlighting editor, build and management facilities,
and an integrated GUI debugger (customized for 56300 but based on the
open GDB protocol). Code editing, compiling/assembling and debugging
can now all occur within one application and environment. There are
even hooks available for using external version control utilities
inherited from the Eclipse framework, making the IDE useful in a group
environment. And there is still no cost to download and use the tool
suite, unlike other Freescale or other vendor software development tools.
Symphony Studio offers a unified GUI debugging interface unlike
Suite56 where the software simulator was separate from the hardware
debugger. The Eclipse framework provides a GUI GDB debugger which
interfaces to a custom CLI GDB debugger for the 56300 which connects
to a GDB remote server (where the remote server can be considered to
be the equivalent of CCS in Suite56).
Symphony Studio has support for legacy parallel port command
converters built-in, and adds support for FT2232-based JTAG adapters
(one of which is already commercially availale for the 56300 devices).
The open nature of the GDB debugging protocol also enables third
parties to implement GDB remote servers for their own JTAG adapter
hardware (two third parties already offer Symphony Studio hardware
support). Suite56 only offers parallel support and absolutely no
third party JTAG adapter support. The software simulator is also
available as another GDB remote server and may be accessed through the
SIMAPI GDB Server template under the Run > External Tools > External
Tools... menu.
Symphony Studio is very different than Suite56, there is no denying
that fact. But since I've been using it, I very much prefer it to
Suite56 for nearly everything.
--d
--- In m..., "Christian Langen"
wrote:
>
> Dear Stefan,
>
> basically the Symphony Studio is a good idea, I appreciate this for
several reasons - even if they are not that important to me
personally:
>
> - Today the offer of an IDE is mandatory for a silicon manufaturer,
otherwise their product is not accepted by developers, Freescale lost
lots of designs to ADI, TI and others for that reason. If you do not
need this (as I do) consider this software as a marketing instrument
hat helps to keep this processor architecture available to us (there
are some benefits that you even cannot find in other silicon like
multiple data busses, 24bit data paths etc. according to a low power
consumption). The times of the command line wizards are gone - the
existing tools (Suite56) are not accepted by thoday's programmers
anymore.
>
> - There are different (free) IDE platforms available that could have
been adopted. Chosing Eclipse was not the worst idea since it has
gained a wide acceptance especially by JAVA and embedded systems
programmers (once you can work with this you can switch easily to
other platforms like Atmel AVR32 and many others).
>
> - The idea to use Eclipse will give further benefits: Probably the
Tasking C compiler will be offered as plug in (I have read is one of
the Freescale publications that a third party compiler will be
released - who else has got one for the DSP56xxx?). Consider the GCC
as 'dummy' C compiler plug in if you do not like it (using C to
generate DSP programs is not the very best idea in general ;-)). Other
plug ins - either free or commercial will follow. Freescale also
announced a filter design plug in for Symphony Studio.
>
> - The integration of various third party JTAG debug interfaces is
possible (and already done for many of them).
>
> - During the beta test I could use the DSP56370 simulator (I will
figure out again how I did this) so I assume it works in version 1.0
as well. Unfortunately the accompanying documentation does not
describe how to do this - if I can find the beta documentation (that
describes how to use the simulator/debugger) again I can forwared this
to you.
>
> - I hope that this is just the beginning for new activities that
will follow!
>
> Simulator:
> Unfortunately it is not possible to open a project like one would
expect, use 'import' -> 'file system' after defining
a new project.
Choose the examples (C tutorial and ASM tutorial) and import them to
your project (this is described in the documentation).
>
> Best regards
>
> Christian
>
> > Moin,
> >
> > I just installed this new Symphony Studio from freescale website:
> >
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=SYMPH_STUDIO&fpsp=1&tabign_Tools_Tab
> >
> > However, I tried and I am still guessing who and what it is made for.
> > The compiler that is part of it has not improved, still the old
> > buggy gnu 1.37 port, only it says "freescale"now instead of motorola.
> > Still no fractional datatypes and acceptable code generated.
> >
> > They say there is a simulator, even for the new dual core 5672X
family,
> > but that is inaccessible. Tried to load example
projects, but the
> > "load project" entry is disabled.
> >
> > So what is this 72MB piece of software good for?
> > Or was I expecting too much?
> >
> > Stefan
>