[comp.sys.transputer] Booting from ROM

phil@sunbim.UUCP (Phil) (05/18/89)

						May 18th,  1989



	Refering to TDS manual and INMOS Technical Note 4 it is easy
to boot a transputer from ROM making it load a network and then run some
application on it.  Now there exist C004s and the transputer that boot 
from ROM must load the network more than once in such a way that the 
C004s in the network are initialized in some order leaving in a final step
the network as needed for the application.  So the fold for making the
EPROM must contain the SC with the loader, the Memory Configuration Fold
and  MORE THAN ONE  Code Program Fold  to be loaded on after the other in
the network. 

	Is there some utilities to make such a fold and put it in EPROM ? 
The network is a mix of 4 T4s, 9 T8s and 2 T2s.  Either the Transputers
initializing the C004s have to make a SOFTWARE RESET by themselves, either
the transputer booting from ROM must have some way of Reseting the network
between successive LOADs.


							Regards

							Phil

phil@sunbim.UUCP (Phil) (05/23/89)

							May 23rd 1989


	Sorry if it is the second time you see this question but our mail
server had some problems and we are not able to know if it was sent or not.
Furthermore the whole mailing from transputer-request ( and so any answer )
was lost for the same reason.  If you already sent an answer try sending it
again directly to  pomme!phil@be.sunbim  !  Thank you !


Here is the question :



	Refering to TDS manual and INMOS Technical Note 4 it is easy
to boot a transputer from ROM making it load a network and then run some
application on it.  Now there exist C004s and the transputer that boot 
from ROM must load the network more than once in such a way that the 
C004s in the network are initialized in some order leaving in a final step
the network as needed for the application.  So the fold for making the
EPROM must contain the SC with the loader, the Memory Configuration Fold
and  MORE THAN ONE  Code Program Fold  to be loaded one after the other in
the network. 

	Is there some utilities to make such a fold and put it in EPROM ? 
The network is a mix of 4 T4s, 9 T8s and 2 T2s.  Either the Transputers
initializing the C004s have to make a SOFTWARE RESET by themselves, either
the transputer booting from ROM must have some way of Reseting the network
between successive LOADs.


							Regards

							Phil

pak@tumuc.UUCP (Peter A. Krauss) (05/26/89)

The TDS solution, as descripted in the manual and supplied within the D700D
system, applies only to hardware without C004 and to hardware, which has
a common reset line.

I'm using an IBM-AT with a B008 board to develop my software, but the
destination is a VME-BUS system with different boards from Parsytek, where
some boards have four T800 and two C004. The T800s are completly seperated
from each other, the only connection is through the C004. One C004 handles
the normal link connection, the other C004 handles the connection of the
reset lines, so that one transputer resets its neighbour. On the other
boards are T414.

This system has no common reset line, each transputer gets the reset from a
neighbour. The first transputer receives the reset from the B008 or from a
power-up reset, when booted from rom. During the development I used the C004s,
which have also to be configured to build the connections between the
transputers. This C004s were later replaced by hardwired jumpers to improve
the data transfer rate.

To load this network either from the B008 over a normal link connection or
from a boot rom, which is on one of the T414 boards, I found the program
EXTLOAD in the directory /tds2/system/tools/src. This program does the same
job as the build-in functions ALT-3 (extract) and ALT-4 (load network).
During the extraction-phase all CODE modules from one PROGRAM fold are
combined together with special loader modules. This loaders are compiled into
the EXTLOAD program. In the same directory is also the source of the loaders.
Inside the EXTLOAD program are four different loaders for T8 and T4/2,
for HALT-ON-ERROR and CONTINUE-ON-ERROR compilation mode.

I corrected the bug of the EXTLOAD, as described in my earlier posting, and
installed modified loaders. One loader, which I named RESET-loader, does a
software reset on its neighbour transputer before sending the first data
packet to this neighbour. The configuration of the C004 is done by a special
SETUP-loader. To place the different loaders onto the correct transputer I
used the compilation mode and transputer type.

Contact me, if some further information is needed.

Peter A Krauss  (pak@tumuc.e-technik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de)