FreeRTOS – LPC2148 (LCD Scroll and LED Blinking)

Last Updated on: July 19th, 2022

This article is a continuation of the  Series on FreeRTOS and carries the discussion on FreeRTOS and its usage. The aim of this series is to provide easy and practical examples that anyone can understand. Today I came up with a new tutorial (FreeRTOS LCD Interfacing with LPC2148). 

Prerequisites

Before we will start I would suggest you to read these topics. Then only you can understand this strongly. If you already know, please go ahead.

• How to port FreeRTOS with Keil
• RTOS Tutorial 
• LCD Interfacing with LPC2148
• LED Interfacing with LPC2148

FreeRTOS LCD Interfacing with LPC2148

Introduction

We already know why we are using RTOS. Because we can develop multi-threads in RTOS whereas without RTOS we cant. Create the RTOS project. Here I’ve created two threads.

1. LED blinking
2. LCD scroll

Connections

LED Blinking

LED is connected into Port 0.8 to P0.15. This thread will blink the LEDs.

LCD Scroll

LCD is connected to Port 1.

Before that, FreeRTOS has many APIs. Here we are going to use API for Task creating and Delay.

FreeRTOS APIs

xTaskCreate()  API

            This FreeRTOS API is used to create a task. Using this API we can create more tasks.

portBASE_TYPE xTaskCreate  (      pdTASK_CODE pvTaskCode,                                   const signed portCHAR * const pcName,                                   unsigned portSHORT usStackDepth,                                   void *pvParameters,                                   unsigned portBASE_TYPE uxPriority,                                   xTaskHandle *pxCreatedTask );

 

• pvTaskCode: a pointer to the function where the task is implemented. (Address of the function)
• pcName: given name to the task. This is useless to FreeRTOS but is intended for debugging purposes only.
• usStackDepth: length of the stack for this task in words. The actual size of the stack depends on the microcontroller.
• pvParameters: a pointer to arguments given to the task.
• uxPriority: priority given to the task, a number between 0 and MAX_PRIORITIES – 1.
• pxCreatedTask: a pointer to an identifier that allows handling the task. If the task does not have to be handled in the future, this can be left NULL.

VtaskDelay() API

            We are using this API for delay purposes.

Now go through the code.

CODE

#include<FreeRTOS.H>
#include<task.h>

#define bit(x) (1<<x)

void lcd(void *);
void led(void *);

void lcd_init(void);
void cmd(unsigned char a);
void dat(unsigned char b);
void show(unsigned char *s);
void lcd_delay(void);

void lcd_init()
{
    cmd(0x38);
    cmd(0x0e);
    cmd(0x01);
    cmd(0x06);
    cmd(0x0c);
    cmd(0x80);
}

void cmd(unsigned char a)
{
    IO1CLR=0xFF070000;
    IO1SET=(a<<24);
    IO1CLR=bit(16);             //rs=0
    IO1CLR=bit(17);             //rw=0
    IO1SET=bit(18);             //en=1
    lcd_delay();
    IO1CLR=bit(18);             //en=0
}

void dat(unsigned char b)
{
    IO1CLR=0xFF070000;
    IO1SET=(b<<24);
    IO1SET=bit(16);             //rs=1
    IO1CLR=bit(17);             //rw=0
    IO1SET=bit(18);             //en=1
    lcd_delay();
    IO1CLR=bit(18);             //en=0
}

void show(unsigned char *s)
{
    while(*s) {
        dat(*s++);
    }
}

void lcd_delay()
{
    unsigned int i;
    for(i=0;i<=2000;i++);
}

int main()
{
    IO0DIR=IO1DIR=0xffffffff;
    lcd_init();
    xTaskCreate(lcd,"lcd scroll",1000,0,1,0);
    xTaskCreate(led,"led blinking",1000,0,1,0);
    vTaskStartScheduler();
}

void lcd(void *s)
{
    cmd(0x80);
    show("Embetronicx.com ");
    while(1) {
        cmd(0x18);
        vTaskDelay(1);
    }
}

void led(void *s)
{
    while(1) {
        IO0SET=0xff00;
        vTaskDelay(1);
        IO0CLR=0xff00;
        vTaskDelay(1);
    }
}

OUTPUT

[You can check the below image]

 

You can also read the below tutorials.

Linux Device Driver Tutorials	C Programming Tutorials
FreeRTOS Tutorials	NuttX RTOS Tutorials
RTX RTOS Tutorials	Interrupts Basics
I2C Protocol – Part 1 (Basics)	I2C Protocol – Part 2 (Advanced Topics)
STM32 Tutorials	LPC2148 (ARM7) Tutorials
PIC16F877A Tutorials	8051 Tutorials
Unit Testing in C Tutorials	ESP32-IDF Tutorials
Raspberry Pi Tutorials	Embedded Interview Topics
Reset Sequence in ARM Cortex-M4	BLE Basics
VIC and NVIC in ARM	SPI – Serial Peripheral Interface Protocol
STM32F7 Bootloader Tutorials	Raspberry PI Pico Tutorials
STM32F103 Bootloader Tutorials	RT-Thread RTOS Tutorials
Zephyr RTOS Tutorials - STM32	Zephyr RTOS Tutorials - ESP32
AUTOSAR Tutorials	UDS Protocol Tutorials
Product Reviews	STM32 MikroC Bootloader Tutorial
VHDL Tutorials