To use the development kit you need to download and install the "CapTIvate
Design Center" GUI
CapTIvate_Design_Center 1_20_00_01 - TI.com
This allows you to see the outputs from the sensors and design new interfaces. The installation is very straightforward and simply requires you to confirm the license and select and installation directory.
The designer includes the samples mentioned in the getting started tutorials and these in turn contain handy annotations.
The designer can also be used to analyse and tune an existing design, out of the box you can plug in the CAPTIVATE-BSWP board, fire up the software and enable communication. This board has a linear and rotary slider, 8 buttons and a proximity detector which is also used to wake the MCU from a sleep mode. As you interact with the physical board you can see the graphics respond.
For more detail open up the properties of one of the sensors to see the channel data.
You can also tune the sensors from here and apply the settings to the board.
From the properties of the MCU, you can see all of the channels at once and it's here that you would specify which kind of input devices are attached to which pins.
Once you are happy with your tuning and settings you can generate code for the target system.
Although you don't need to do your own programming to be able to use the design centre, you do need to have additional software installed to do the uploading. Code Composer studio is recommended and is a free download although you do need a MyTI account and you do need to promise not to use it for taking over the world etc.
Download CCS - Texas Instruments Wiki
Code Composer Studio setup seemed straight forward enough but it complained that I had antivirus software installed and the downloader also fired an alert on the Windows Firewall. I picked what I hope are the right options, selecting all of the product families for the MSP range, the default debuggers and none of the extras from the TI version of the app store.
I've left this installing and will let you know how I get on programming the board next time. I plan to run through the workshop before I get onto using the boards with different overlays and gloves.
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