Implemented bare-metal application flow for game ROM loading and another diagnostic application to test UART. Both are implemented in C and to be run by the ARM core on the ZedBoard. UART has been confirmed to work end-to-end with manual UART byte injection. However, the JTAG/AP debug link is unstable (intermittent AP transaction errors, DAP-only enumeration, e.g. 0x30000021). Because JTAG/AP is unstable, launch/debug outcomes are inconsistent. Software correctness for ROM load and uart_smoke is therefore not yet verified.
The instability could be due to the current WSL2 dev environment. I’m planning to switch to native linux for another test run. Other potential causes could be the default JTAG frequency being too high, a bad power supply, core overheating, or simply having a defective board (unlikely but possible). Due to the issue described, I am slightly behind the new schedule we drafted. I plan to invest more time to debug the current situation. Once it gets resolved, I’ll continue to work on the rest of the development.
In addition to the above progress and obstacles seen, since I am in charge of the SoC integration, I’ve finalized the design plan using the Zedboard with its ARM core to serve our goal of recreating the NES with remote multiplayer capabilities.
