Ubuntu works great with the MSP430 Launchpad

I got my MSP430 TI Launchpad more than a year ago simply because of the price. It was (and still is) $4.30 (with free shipping!) for a development board, two MSP430 microcontrollers, external crystal, and USB cable. Unfortunately, Windows was the only supported OS at launch time with a couple proprietary bundled IDEs. It still is the only officially supported OS, but setting up Ubuntu 11.10 and newer for the msp430 has become trivial:

sudo apt-get install gcc-msp430 gdb-msp430 mspdebug

To test your Launchpad, try compiling “blink” from https://github.com/mrothe/ti-launchpad.

The build process goes something like:

msp430-gcc -Os -mmcu=msp430x2012 -o main.elf main.c
msp430-objcopy -O ihex main.elf main.hex # generate hex file
mspdebug rf2500 "prog main.hex" # download to the launchpad

Do mind your O, o, and 0.

One Response to “Ubuntu works great with the MSP430 Launchpad”

  1. B. Axell writes:

    Unfortunately the MSP430 launchpad isn’t 4.30 anymore. Got mine for $10, which is still great. I guess I missed the offer.

    Thanks for the information on compiling in Ubuntu. I’ve been trying to do the same thing following this MSP430 tutorial.

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