Hacking

The Black Magic Probe consists of both hardware and firmware components. The hardware design resides in the 'hardware' directory and the firmware resides in the 'src' directory.

Getting the project source

The project resides in a GitHub git repository

Clone this repository (or fork and clone) using your desired method. Typically:

git clone https://github.com/blacksphere/blackmagic.git

The project uses libopencm3, which is included as a git submodule. Thus, prior to building the project, one must initialize this submodule:

cd /path/to/blackmagic
git submodule init
git submodule update

Compiling for the native hardware

To build the firmware for the standard hardware platform run 'make' in the src directory. You will require a GCC cross compiler for ARM Cortex-M3 targets. A good option is gcc-arm-embedded. The default makefile assumes the target is arm-none-eabi-, but you can override this on the command line:

make CROSS_COMPILE=arm-cortexm3-eabi-

This will result in binary files:
blackmagic - ELF binary of the Black Magic debug probe.
blackmagic.bin - Flat binary of the Black Magic debug probe, load at 0x8002000.
blackmagic_dfu - ELF binary of the Black Magic DFU bootloader.
blackmagic_dfu.bin - Flat binary of the DFU bootloader, load at 0x8000000.

If you already have a JTAG/SWD debug probe, that can be used to load these binaries to your target hardware. If not the SystemMemory bootloader can be used to load the DFU bootloader:

../scripts/bootprog.py blackmagic_dfu.bin

This requires an appropriate cable to connect the PC serial port to the probe. See the schematic for more information.

Once the DFU bootloader is loaded, the Black Magic application can be loaded over USB: (First connect the probe and observe the flashing red led)

../scripts/stm32_mem.py blackmagic.bin

The device should reset and re-enumerate as a CDC-ACM device implementing the GDB protocol.

Compiling as a PC application using FT2232 hardware

The Black Magic application can also be compiled as a native PC application which will use an FT2232 device to implement the physical JTAG interface. This is not the intended mode of operation, but is useful for debugging, experimentation, and if you don't have the actual hardware.

First, get the VID/PID for your FT2232 device using 'lsusb'. Edit the file 'src/libftdi/platform.h' and change the VID/PID to match your hardware. Compile the application with the command:

make PROBE_HOST=libftdi

Running the application 'blackmagic' will start a GDB server on TCP port 2000.