Re: [avrdude-dev] Bad programming speed on AT90S8535 using AVRdude

[Brian Dean]

On Tue, Nov 18, 2003 at 06:20:00PM -0500, Brian Dean wrote:

> I didn't try Jan-Hinnerk's patch on FreeBSD, but I tried your file
> with the latest cvs and with your (Ted's) patch.  The result in both
> cases is 13.02 seconds real time as reported by the shell.  AVRDUDE
> reports 12.54 seconds of programming time in both cases, i.e., no
> difference and seems to be on par with the STK500 and JTAGICE.  I also
> verified this with the STK500 on FreeBSD and got the same result
> (12.52 seconds as reported by AVRDUDE).  So, essentially, FreeBSD
> shows no difference in programming time when using the parallel port
> programmer vs the STK500.

I tried this on a slower machine, a Pentium II 300 MHz.  It programmed
the board in 39 seconds (parallel port) and 12.53 seconds (STK500).
This is closer to what I remember the difference being.  Also, way
back when I tested before, the 300 MHz machine was my primary machine.
I'm now using an Athlon 2200 which gave 12.5 seconds for the parallel
port, STK500, and JTAGICE, so I'm thinking this is about as short as
the programming time is going to get, regardless of the programmer.

However, I wouldn't expect that big of a difference in the
timing. between the two systems for the parallel port.  Surely this is
not a CPU bound process.

Maybe differences in motherboard chipsets?

I do note that my older system is running:

     FreeBSD vger.bsdhome.com 4.7-STABLE FreeBSD 4.7-STABLE #0: Wed Nov  6 
19:01:57 EST 2002     address@hidden:/scratch/usrobj/usr/src/sys/VGER  i386

While my newer, faster system is running:

     FreeBSD neutrino.bsdhome.com 4.9-STABLE FreeBSD 4.9-STABLE #0: Tue Nov 18 
14:49:25 EST 2003     address@hidden:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/NEUTRINO  i386

These are about a year apart.  If I get a chance, I'll update my older
system to the latest code, just to rule out a change in the OS to
explain these big differences in parallel port programming time.

-Brian
-- 
Brian Dean
address@hidden
http://www.bsdhome.com/
http://www.bdmicro.com/