The goal: to “randomly” flash the on-board LEDs at P1.0 and P1.6

The weapons: CCS, Launchpad, Cookies (you may choose your favourite ones)

The reason: To familiarize yourself with the coding environment, or just for the heck of it.

The library:

#ifndef GRAND_H_
#define GRAND_H_

static unsigned long int rand_next = 1;

int gRand( void ) {
	rand_next = rand_next * 1103515245 + 12345;
	return (unsigned int)(rand_next/65536) % 32768;
}

void gSRand( unsigned int seed ) {
	rand_next = seed;
}

#define gRandom()		((gRand() & 0x7fff) / ((float)0x7fff)) 	// random in the range [0, 1]
#define gCRandom()		(2.0 * (gRandom() - 0.5)) 			// random in the range [-1, 1]
#define gMax(x,y)		(x > y ? x : y)				// minimum
#define gMin(x,y)		(x < y ? x : y)				// maximum

#endif /*GRAND_H_*/

That’s our random library, it’s grand.h

The “g” prefix is one I often use privately, it’s simply the first letter of my name. However because there may be other routines in the future with a similar naming convention, having “g” prefixed is not a bad idea; without having to fall into namespace gibberish.

The PRNG is an old standard. No need to discuss it.

You may recognize those macros, yes! They’re from Quake3! — Although we aren’t using them I left them there for future reference on how to obtain usable value ranges from the PRNG. There’s a lot to be said about floating point values and whatnot, But I’m going to restrain myself in this case.

Now to the main code:

// MSP430 Launchpad - Blink onboard LEDs using random delays.
//	GuShH - info@gushh.net

#include  "msp430x20x2.h"	// Include the necessary header for our target MCU
#include  "grand.h"		// Include our simplistic prng lib.

void delay_ms(unsigned int ms ) { // This function simply performs a software delay, hard from efficient but it's practical in this case.
	unsigned int i;
	for (i = 0; i < = ms; i++) { // Make sure your < and = has no space in between (the syntax parser seems to be messing things up)
		__delay_cycles(500); // This should be dependent on clock speed... but what the hell, even the loop itself should be taken into account...
	}
}

void set_and_wait( int led ) {
	P1OUT = led;			// Set the bits
	delay_ms( gRand() * 0.01 );	// Delay a "random" amount of time
}

void main(void) {

	WDTCTL = WDTPW + WDTHOLD; // Hold the WDT (WatchDog Timer)
	P1DIR |= BIT0|BIT6;       // Enable the appropriate output

	while(1) {
		set_and_wait( BIT0 );	// Set BIT0, that's our first LED.
		set_and_wait( BIT6 );	// Set BIT6, The other LED.
	}

}

No external hardware is required, just make sure both P1.0 and P1.6 jumpers are set.

As you can see we're simply toggling the LEDs with a random delay, the delay_ms(); function was taken from here.

Like I said there are quite a few topics to explain, however I decided to keep this one as simple as possible (Alright, I'm in a rush!)

So... Compile, run and enjoy!

Once I get the time I'll put together some utilitarian code libraries and lengthier explanations, promise.

For those interested, you may download the entire project directory from here: Random Software Delays.

One of the most important things a programmer has to know and learn is proper code design, structuring of the code, etc. This may not be imperative for you if you’re just starting out, but sooner or later you’ll be able to spot the patterns and realize that your current way of doing things is not optimal but rather cumbersome. This is when you start to separate things into modules and you begin to design your code with more meaning and purpose.

By breaking your code into modules or “classes” you can have a finer granularity of the code itself, you can encapsulate the base code and work on top of it, you can also reuse the code in other projects if you have a good design. An example would be a log library (for logging useful debugging information onto text files) with proper design and care you’ll be able to use the same library in almost all of your projects with little to no modification at all.
More…

Tired of writing the same “randomize array” routines over and over?, just snap this little macro and register them as you see fit. A guard should be put to avoid double registrations (although the compiler will complain about this anyway — I suggest registering right after you include this, since you already know what you’re going to need… )

Code:
http://gushh.net/dev/?file=pb/randomizearray.pb

Examples:
http://gushh.net/dev/?file=pb/randomizearray_test.pb

Simple, right?

A need for both a debug / format (to string) and random fills for string arrays is present, but I’m not in the need of them at the moment. Do request if you need them though.

Cheers.