MiniSDK Advanced Interface
It is very straight forward, so there is probably not much explanation needed, but I will do it anyway ;-)
When you have selected the Advanced interface from the previous menu, you will see the screen, shown down here.
Now before you can start programming, you will first need to tell the software what type of card you are going to program.
There are 2 ways to do that:
1. Select the card from the pull down menu (like in the screen shot down here) OR....
2. you can let the software detect what card you have.
To let the software do the job, just click on the Detect button at the bottom right of the screen.
A new window will pop up, the Card Detect window.
If you don't know what card you have, you probably don't know what eeprom is on it either. So in that case you can let the software find out the size of the external eeprom too.
To do so, just tick the Detect EXT Eeprom box.
Now simply click the Detect button and wait until the software responds with your card type.
As you can see in the screen shot down here, I have used a Fun Card.
Now you need to load the files you want to program.
Start with the Base Code.
This is the file that is usually called Flash file for Fun Cards and PIC file for Gold and Silver Cards.
Click the Load button.
From the file select window, you select the appropriate file (flash.hex in this sample).
If needed, you can also select the Internal Eeprom file.
This is not always used though.
Refer to the File types chapter for more info about this issue.
Anyway, for this sample we need the Internal Eeprom, so click the Load button.
Select the internal eeprom file from the file select window.
Click the Load button at the bottom, to load the external eeprom file.
From the file select window, select the external eeprom file.
Now you can see that all file view boxes are filled with data. They no longer contain all FF. That means we are now ready to start the programming.
So select the Blow Bootloader + Ext Eeprom + Base option from the Commands list.
Next you click the DO IT!! button.
Now the software will start programming the card.
This actual programming is done in 2 stages:
The first stage is programming the bootloader to the card.
Without that bootloader, the software would not be able to program the External Eeprom.
After the bootloader is programmed successfully, the card is programmed with the appropriate data in this order:
- External Eeprom
- Base Code (or Flash)
- Internal Eeprom
When all the programming stages are completed successfully, the software will tell you so.
See the screen shot down here.
Then there are a few more options available in the software.
Just have a look at the 4 buttons in the bottom right corner of the screen:
- Menu (takes you back to the program entry menu)
- Detect (explained above)
- Switch (takes you 1 level back in the menu hierarchy)
- ATR (will explain that now)
When you click the ATR button, a new window will appear: the ATR Tester window.
Click the Get ATR button and the software will reply with the cards ATR.
You can also use the MiniSDK software to test a card, for diagnostic purposes for instance, by sending data to the card and analyzing its response. When you send a command to the card and you know what the response should be, you can check if you get the expected response in the bottom right section of the program window.
Have fun.