Chapter 13: Token Ring Cards
Ring Protocols Used by the TR-8405
186 SmartBits System Reference
Firmware Updates
This firmware is field-upgradeable by the user. The user has a choice of using the
TRLOAD utility or doing the upgrade manually using a terminal. The upgrade mechanism
works on all cards in a system simultaneously.
The card uses three firmware images, one for the code and one for each of the FPGAs. The
majority of updates will only involve the firmware image. The update mechanism is
identical for each of the images; the image file has the product number, image type and
image version encoded in it so that each card can determine whether an image needs to be
loaded and what to do with that image if it is loaded. Each card holds duplicate copies of
its images so that if one of the images is corrupted - due to, say, a power glitch - then the
card will be able to work from the other. The card will try to make sure that it always has a
good pair of images by copying a good image over a bad one on startup.
The three image files are:
• TR_LOAD.HEX - The firmware image.
• TR_RC.HEX -TheReceive FPGA image.
• TR_TX.HEX -TheTransmit FPGA image.
The files are in Motorola SRecord format and so can be handled like any other text file.
The update process using the TRLOAD utility is run from the MS-DOS command line.
The command syntax is:
TRLOAD <Filename> [Port]
The filename is required and will be the file to upgrade. The Port is optional and is only
needed if the computer is not using the default COM2 port to communicate with the
SmartBits chassis. The update process continues as follows:
• This utility first opens the file and checks the image header in it to see what kind of
image it is and what version it is.
• It then opens communication with the ET1000/SMB1000 and checks for Token Ring
cards.
• If it does not find any of these it tells the user and exits.
• If it does find them, it checks the version number of the image on the card against that
in the file. If all of the cards have the same version as the image in the file, it tells the
user and exits.
• If any have different versions, then it lists them and proceeds to download the image
to all of the TR cards.
The program will display the download progress as a percentage of the file transferred.
The user can stop the download at any time by issuing a Control/Break;however,the
Smartbits will probably need to be power cycled to get it communicating to the application
or utility.
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