ARM processors

March 3, 2025

STM32F429 Discovery Kit - Original demo

I am eager to download and try some code on my board, but I would like to keep a copy of the original demo. In other words I would like:

a place to download the latest binary for the demo
a place to download the source code for the demo
to extract the demo from my actual board.

Downloads

If you go to the product page for the discovery board, then select tools and software, you can go to "STM32F429 discovery firmware package (UM1662)" and do a download (you need to register with ST, which I did long ago). Once you have registered, you need to log in.

UM1662

This turns out to be a zip file with all kinds of source code, javascript, and html. It would take some time to wade through it. I did search and found a couple of downloadable images, but not for version 1.0.3.

One person says that if you get an install the CUBE package, then install the board specific add-on package for the F429, it will include the demo source.

There is also this fellow:

Github: stm32f429 demos

I did clone his repository in my "Demos" directory.

Dumping the image using openocd

I find my mini-USB cable and plug the board in using the ST-Link connector. I review my notes on openocd, then as per notes elsewhere among these pages:

make ocd
telnet localhost 4444 (in a different window)

Then in that telnet window:

halt
dump_image demo.bin 0x00000000 0x20000
dumped 131072 bytes in 1.198545s (106.796 KiB/s)

this is just a test -- I will want to dump more than that. Note that although I ran telnet from my home directory, the file gets written to the directory where I started openocd (which does make sense when you think about it). The first few bytes of this dump look like this, which seems believable:

00000000 80f0 0220 c58b 0f08 4d56 0e08 4f56 0e08
00000010 5156 0e08 5356 0e08 5556 0e08 0000 0000
00000020 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 732a 0b08

Now we try the real thing:

dump_image demo.bin 0 0x200000
dumped 2097152 bytes in 19.491350s (105.072 KiB/s)

Typing "strings demo.bin" yields plenty of interesting things, such as:

The game ends in a draw!
Do you want to start a new game?
Copyright 2013 STMicroelectronics
Board : STM32F429I-DISCO
Firmware Version : 1.0.3
Start Speed Benchmark
00000000 Pixels/s
System Information
CPU Speed : 168MHz
!!! ALARM !!!
Image Browser
No File Found
Core: CortexM4F
MJPEG Player
No File Found

So I believe this did what I wanted.

I rename the file to "my_demo.bin" and place it in my F429 directory.

Feedback? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's Computer Info / [email protected]