budd@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Philip Budne) (02/25/88)
Can anyone give me pointers to a bus protocol called "Bus Packet Protocol" (BPP)? It may be VME bus oriented or derived. What devices and/or systems use BPP? Please reply by mail, will summarize to comp.protocols.misc Phil Budne Boston University Distributed Systems Group budd@bu-it.bu.edu {harvard!mit-eddie}!bu-cs!budd
budd@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Philip Budne) (03/07/88)
Thanks for all the great replies!! Turns out what I was looking for was Motorola VME Bus "Buffered Pipe Protocol". In article <20177@bu-cs.BU.EDU>, budd@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Philip Budne) writes: > Can anyone give me pointers to a bus protocol called "Bus Packet > Protocol" (BPP)? It may be VME bus oriented or derived. > > What devices and/or systems use BPP? ================ >From: Philip E Staub <phils@tekigm2.men.tek.com>: Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. Don't know about "Bus Packet Protocol", but Motorola has one which they call "Buffered Pipe Protocol" (BPP). It is part of what they call their "Common Envoronment" for multiprocessor systems on VMEbus. It is the protocol they are using to communicate with their MAP controller boards (probably others as well) in VME/SYS V unix systems. Contact your local Moto rep and ask for manual numbers MVMECEUM and MVMECEDRV. The latest I have are both draft 1 (D1) revisions. ================ >From: harvard!gatech!cadeta!dtscp1!motatl!mad@bu-cs.bu.edu Organization: Motorola MicroComputer Division, Norcross GA You may mean the Buffered Pipe Protocol. BPP is a method that Motorola uses to allow easy interfacing to intelligent I/O cards that reside on the VMEbus. Essentially, it allows a common device interface to a variety of VMEbus boards. A simple description of the protocol is as follows: 1) A channel (logical link to the I/O board) is set up. To set up this channel you issue what is called an initialization command. It will set up the necessary memory allocation and device type (disk, tape, SIO, etc), also it will set up interrupt levels if you are using interrupts. 2) You then set up a queue. This will allocate "packets" to send back and forth between the device. It will enqueue those packets if the device is executing the last packet sent. 3) You then send packets to the I/O device. After sending the packet you can then sleep until interrupted by the I/O device or you can TAS (Test And Set) a register until it is cleared by the I/O device. That is a brief description of the BPP. One thing to remember, BPP must have hardware/firmware on the I/O card to support this communication. Now about VME cards that implement BPP. We have quite a few cards that implement BPP. Those are as follows: MVME331 6 port sync/async SIO board MVME332 8 port async SIO board MVME332XT 8 port, 1 parallel async FAST SIO board MVME333 6 port sync/async SIO w/DMA board MVME350 QIC-02 Tape Controller MVME322 ESDI Disk controller MVME327A SCSI Disk interface I am not sure if there are non-Motorola cards that implement BPP but I will try to find out. Mark Davidson "Hep me...Hep me...I've been HYPnotized!" Motorola MicroComputer Division - David Letterman on seeing Terri Garr Norcross, GA in the shower. ================ >From: ll-xn!ames!hplabs!motsj1!ellymae!nud!sbo!larry@bu-cs.bu.edu Organization: Motorola - Computer Systems Division, Tempe, Az. I don't know a lot of the details, but I know that we use this protocol as part of an XNS based LAN offering here called Officelan. I believe that several other of our boards also make use of this (on the Motorola Computer System's 8000 line, and Motorola Delta Series). Larry Mullen Motorola CSD Tempe, AZ ================ >From: harvard!ut-sally!uunet!unido!mucmot!stefan@bu-cs.bu.edu Suppose you refer to the "Buffered Pipe Protocol". It is described in the "Common Environment" manuals from Motorola. Ask marketing or a Motorola sales office about it. Hope that helps Stefan Stefan Loesch Motorola Computer Systems Europe Munich {mcvax!unido}!mucmot!stefan