Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Tony Cox - (415)926-3105 <[email protected]> · Thu, 02 Nov 1995 09:19:04 PST

I've tried this, and for me it is not possible. (I was going to make a
presentation at the on-going collaborators meeting, but I got sick & had to
return early. I type this from my sick bed).

Let me say first that the support I received from the Heurikon folks was
excellent. They are clearly very eager to get this board accepted by the
EPICS community. There are two problems.

1 - The boot rom assumes that all VME boards obey the specs. The first time
    I tried to boot, it hung. It turns out that the XyCom 556 module (the only
    one I had in the crate, thinking it would be an easy test) holds down
    sysFail. The N60 boot room code waits for sysFail to go away, as it should
    if the module obeys spec. 

    Heurikon provided me with a boot rom with the sysFail test commented out,
    and now it boots! Presumably, the m167 boot code never checks for sysFail.

2 - The BSP for the N60 cannot be integrated with the VxWorks code _as provided
    by Digital_. I have the DEC VxWorks package, not the standard WRS package.
    I spent a long day on this last week, with sprited support from Heurikon.
    The problem, according to H (& I have no reason to disgree, since the 
    fellow clearly knew what he was talking about), is that the DEC supplied
    package does not follow the WRS guidelines for dividing the responsibility
    for architecture support between WRS and board vendors. There are bits
    missing in the DEC kit, like C++ support routines, which the Heurikon
    BSP needs to successfully build.
    Further, the DEC package has no inherent support for 68060 processors,
    which _may_ be because I am not at the current version (I'm checking that
    out now).

This is all a pity for me - I was looking forward to the 68060, especially 
because of its reduced requirment for rack space (no transition module) - but 
it isn't a disaster. My requirements for this project are pedestrian. Hence,
I'll be sticking with the tried and true mv167.

Where does that leave the rest of the community, those who have a conventional
WRS distribution? There are important advantages with the N60, and if I were
about to purchase, this board would be the preferred one to get.
First, depending on your location, find out how would be doing the technical
support if you find problems. In the bay area, I got hold of an excellent
fellow to help, but the same might not be true elsewhere in the country.
Second, check what support you have in the WRS distribution. If you dont
have files libMC68060$(TOOLS)drv and libMC68060$(TOOLS)vx, you'll need to
upgrade before you can get very far.

Tony

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Anthony D Cox
Computer Systems Specialist
Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
MS 69, Box 4349
Stanford CA 94305
[email protected]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System