• log on to d0ol04.fnal.gov or any other online machine as d0smt
• make a telnet to t-d0-mch2
• login as ioc the password should be known
• connect from the terminal server to the frontend CPU you need. A list of the terminal ports for the SMT crates is given here.
• Example: crate x61, presently terminal port 30. Type then on the prompt connect 30 and press 2x return
• In vxworks you need to move to the directory where the object file is stored. Use the cd command to move between directories and make sure that you enclose the directory path in double quotes.  Type cd "~savage/ioc/vrb"
• Load then the object file. Type ld < d0_vrb_prog.o With moduleShow you can see if the object file is really loaded.

• There are two sets of programs available: A query function d0_vrb_query and d0_vrb_prog. Both programs expect as argument the vrb slot number.

• -> d0_vrb_query 9 gives


Register contents:
vrb id = 0x3
configuration setting = 0x0
date code = 0x1208
module serial number = 4220
module type = 0x1

This program prints out some informations from the vrb registers
 

• To download a new firmware version to the VRBs the following program should be used:

-> d0_vrb_prog 9, "~lehnerf/vrb1208p.hex"
the output is:
switching to default mode, wait 10 seconds
Time's up

Read bank 1 data from S-record file.
Finished reading bank 1 from S-record file.

Write bank1.
Finished bank 1 write.

etc etc
 

This sequence should take approximatly ~2 minutes.
 
 

the latest VRB firmware is x1208, i.e. the version from December 8, 2000. The S-record file is in the directory ~lehnerf/vrb and is called "vrb1208p.hex".  Please note the following message by M.Bowden about this version:

This version includes the software write-protect, the control bit to disable status signals on the J3 backplane and a default buffer configuration of 16 x 2kbyte (with an overlapping 8 x 4 kbyte set of buffers)

The write-protect has a couple of features that should be mentioned:

1.)  write protect does not actually get enabled until the second time you download the firmware. This is because it requires the new firmware to running at the time an update is done. So, to enable the write-protection you will need to download the version vrb1208p.hex to each board twice. For all future versions, you will only need to download once .... the duplicate download is just for this version to first install the driver on the board, and then run it.

2.) Once you have installed this version, you can't revert to an older version (anything prior to today's date). This is because the older version do not have the software key to unlock the write-protection. So you may want to try this version on a few boards before downloading it to all boards.

The bakplane status disable control bit is in the "vrb control" register. It defaults to "enabled".

The 16 x 2 kbyte buffer configuration is now the default, but can be changed as before by writing to VME  registers. Note that there was an error in the previous documentation, saying that a reset was required to change the buffer configuration. Actually, the change takes place immediatly.
 

control-x or just type reboot reboots the CPU
h prints shell history
ld loads into memory
cd change directory
pwd print current working directoy
moduleShow shows loaded modules