21:42 <Samreen> Hello, was following the instructions here with some modifications for a different Spartan 6 board and got stuck after flashing top.bit with vexriscv. There doesn't seem to be a BIOS with the bit file or at least flterm doesn't show any response. Ideas on how I could troubleshoot?

21:42 <Samreen> https://ewen.mcneill.gen.nz/blog/entry/2018-01-17-fupy-fpga-micropython-on-mimas-v2-and-arty-a7/

21:43 <tpb> Title: FuPy (FPGA MicroPython) on Mimas v2 and Arty (at ewen.mcneill.gen.nz)

21:45 <Samreen> Currently trying to figure out how to include the BIOS in the generated gateware or a way to flash the bios.bin file via the SPI flash. Currently, we use xc3sprog.

21:55 <CarlFK> mithro: _florent_ ^^ ?

21:56 <CarlFK> Samreen: wish I could help - I'm a more a python dev hoping to play with this stuff some day

21:59 <_florent_> Samreen: i'm not very familiar with this design, but it seems the bios should be located in SPI Flash

21:59 <_florent_> so it also needs to be flashed, if you just load the .bit, the bios will be missing

22:01 <_florent_> Samreen: have you used: make image-flash ?

22:15 <Samreen> No, I didn't define image-flash for my application since I'm not sure how to do that on the board I'm using

22:17 <Samreen> Do you know if any of the board implementations here have the bios included in top.bit? It seems for the Arty board, it works after flashing the bit file so maybe the bios is embedded in there? https://github.com/timvideos/litex-buildenv

22:17 <tpb> Title: GitHub - timvideos/litex-buildenv: An environment for building LiteX based FPGA designs. Makes it easy to get everything you need! (at github.com)

22:17 <Samreen> Also, thank you for responding to me!

22:26 <mithro> Samreen: yes, most of the devices use a BIOS embedded in the FPGA

22:26 <mithro> Samreen: but the SLX9 on the MimasV2 is too small to support that

22:28 <Samreen> Ah okay, I modeled the target definition after the Mimas V2 so that makes sense

22:28 <Samreen> Does the minispartan6 implementation have the BIOS embedded?

22:30 <Samreen> This is my fork, any advice as to how I could modify the target or platform files to have the BIOS embedded for this situation? https://github.com/samreenislam/litex-buildenv

22:31 <tpb> Title: GitHub - samreenislam/litex-buildenv: An environment for building LiteX based FPGA designs. Makes it easy to get everything you need! (at github.com)

22:31 <Samreen> mithro: This is for the MATRIX Voice. I just got back into it after a few weeks; some direction would be helpful!

22:32 <Samreen> Thank you :D

22:32 <mithro> What size FPGA is on the MATRIX Voice?

22:33 <Samreen> Second tier Spartan 6: xc6slx9-2ftg256

22:34 <Samreen> Similar to Mimas it seems

22:35 <Samreen> So maybe it's also too small to have the BIOS embedded?

22:54 <mithro> Samreen: Possibly

22:57 <Samreen> If that were the case, do you know of tools to load bin files to the spi flash after flashing the FPGA bitstream? We use "xc3sprog -c matrix_voice -I blob/system_voice.bit" for that currently and I'm trying to see if I can use xc3sprog for the bios binary flashing too

23:00 <davidc__> Samreen: OpenOCD can use proxy flashing bitstreams (and there are a good number of prebuilt bitstreams)

23:01 <Samreen> I'll check it out, thanks!

23:05 <davidc__> Samreen: IIRC thats only supported in OpenOCD git (IE, not packaged in most distributions / prebuilt releases)

23:05 <davidc__> Samreen: so you might need to build it yourself

23:08 <Samreen> Seems like it, thanks for the help!