askok@dnainternet.net wrote:
Did I understand this right: you'd only have the Lua _scripts_
(precompiled bytecode) in the banked memory? How much of scripts
do you
have?
That would mean no banking is used for the GC'able objects. Makes no
sense to me..
-asko
Sorry, I'll try to be clearer:
+ The microcontroller has enough internal flash memory for our
entire C
application (excluding the Lua script).
+ The microcontroller is based on the Harvard architecture which means
it addresses code and data space separately.
+ There is enough code-space for the C application (including the Lua
libraries and basic interpreter).
+ There is enough data-space for variables and constants associated
with
the C application.
+ We can reference an additional 16KB data-space. The address of this
16KB block can be changed on the fly to reference anywhere across our
external 1MB RAM.
+ The microcontroller is connected to external NAND flash storage. The
only way in which this is relevant is that we are storing our script
files in this external NAND flash and loading it in at runtime.
+ All of this works. If, for example, our Lua script performs a simple
calculation and prints out the result then this works fine.
+ As our Lua script grows, it runs out of memory.
+ Our thinking is that we could give Lua 1MB to run its scripts
(instead
of the limited data-space it currently has) if we could alter lua to
use
16KB pages/banks. We only have to update the value of a single
register
to re-point the useable 16KB block to another area of the 1MB. So what
we need to do (if possible without a substantial re-write of Lua) is
to
have Lua allocate and reference memory accross multiple pages and
switch
pages accordingly.
Does that make more sense than my previous email?
Thanks,
Alex.
On Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:35:48 +0000
Alexander Goldstone <alex@zander.net> wrote:
Ralph Hempel wrote:
Is the banking in ROM or RAM? And 16k? That's an awfully small
window.
Can you share a few more details?
Ralph
The banking is in external RAM.
We have sufficient code space as the microcontroller is capable of
addressing 16MB of it - (Harvard architecture so separate address
and
data buses).
It's main limitation is on data space, since it can only address
64KB of
ram for which 32KB is on chip for application variable storage,
16KB is
used for constant data access and the remaining 16KB would be for
page
access to the external 1MB of data ram that would only be used to
hold
the Lua scripts.
Thanks,
Alex
