| Well, since no-one else is volunteering...
One day the ELN/RTVAX/KAV30 people will get around to documenting this
properly. Meantime, I will make the assumption that the same process
applies for a KAV30 as for an RTVAX300 in general, which is what I've
seen before. Another assumption is that your program will actually be
copied from PROM into RAM before executing. Typically it's faster that
way (but you may need more RAM). If your program is going to execute
from PROM you need to worry about ROM/RAM addressing splits (read-only
code and data vs readwrite data) and I never got that question
answered...
Tell EBUILD that you are building for ROM. You get a .SYS file, it has
the network information (name+address) included in, unlike the
network-booted version which picks it up from the load host. The .SYS
file is a binary prom image, not a VMS ".EXE". It contains a header in
the first 512-byte block which allows the RTVAX bootstrap ROMS to
recognise it as a valid PROM set. The bootstrap ROMS copy the data from
PROM to RAM and then go execute it.
As I mentioned, the file format is a binary prom image. The ELN docs
refers to the Data I/O Promlink package, which is one (PC-based) way of
getting the data reliably into a prommer. There are others. If you feel
adventurous you could just put a prommer on the end of a terminal port,
set it up to expect 8bit binary data, and feed the .SYS file using the
COPY command. You must be very careful that VMS does not add any
spurious characters or do any translation... NOT recommended.
More sensibly you hack a little program together (like my customer did)
to convert the data into an industry-standard format which your chosen
prommer understands; these will typically use only printable characters
and have checksums so you can be confident the data arriving in the
prommer is the same as the data leaving the VAX. This same program can
also do the 4way split you will need for 4x8bitwide proms, and split
big programs into 1prom chunks, although the nicer prom blowers may do
this for you. A good knowledge of microsystems development and prom
file formats is helpful here...
It can be done. It's not that difficult. But there's almost no
documentation on how to do it. This is all I know.
regards
john
|
| Re: .-1
On the KAV30 you MUST copy into RAM and then run your image. This is
a KAV30 restriction, which might go away in the future.
Re: .0
RTFM, Hardware Installation and User manual, Chapter 6.3, Page 6-5
Julian.
|
| The EPROM question could never be sufficiently answered, as far as I
know.
I think the few customers who had the requirement, did what was
suggested in the previous reply. Which basically leaves them with
nothing from digital, so they can look around for themselves again.
There used to be a software called DECPROM, which didn't do everything
you wanted but was sufficient for certain PROM-types.
DECPROM was retired some time ago, because of lack of demand.
I think digital should revive DECPROM and adapt it to current market
needs (EPROM-type ...)
It doesn't need to support every prom-blaster out there, but a few of the
most widespread ones it should be able to handle.
If we want to be acknowledged as total solution suppliers, we have to
have this piece of the puzzle as well.
Cheers,
Christoph
|