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PCI training hardware
- To: Mailing List Recipients <pci-sig-request@znyx.com>
- Subject: PCI training hardware
- From: eng267@abdn.ac.uk
- Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 14:38:35 +0100
- Resent-Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 01:46:34 -0700
- Resent-From: pci-sig-request@znyx.com
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Last week, I posted the following request. Thankyou to everyone who
replied. I am not sure how many of the replies were copied to the
list, so here is a digest.
REQUEST:
=======
>
>A colleague teaches an introductory module on PCIbus as part of a
>computer architecture course. It would be good if the students could
>experience some practical exercises. Is anyone aware of simple PCI
>boards/connectors which would allow simple experimentation? It would
>be a bonus if there were software available for monitoring and
>displaying bus activity.
>
>Thankyou.
>
>
>========================================================================
>
>Dr A R Allen Email: a.allen@abdn.ac.uk
>
>========================================================================
>Dept of Engineering | Dept of BioMedical Physics
>University of Aberdeen | University of Aberdeen
>Fraser Noble Building | Foresterhill
>Aberdeen | Aberdeen
>AB24 3UE | AB25 2ZD
>Scotland | Scotland
>UK. | UK.
> |
>Tel: +44 1224 272501 | Tel: +44 1224 663123 ext. 52746
>Fax: +44 1224 272497 | Fax: +44 1224 685645
>========================================================================
>
REPLIES:
=======
From NewD@elcsci.com Mon Jun 1 22:07 BST 1998
From: Dave New <NewD@elcsci.com>
To: "'eng267@abdn.ac.uk'" <eng267@abdn.ac.uk>,
"'Mailing List Recipients'"
<pci-sig@znyx.com>
Subject: RE: PCI training hardware
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 14:04:30 -0700
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[Dave New] AMCC makes (or made) an evaluation kit for their
5933
part. The board had a 5933 and a prototyping area with a PLCC
socket
for an FPGA (if you like). It also had a 'loopback' board and
connector
that would let you write data to the 5933 from the PCI-side,
and read
it back through the ISA bus at I/O address 0x300 from the
loopback
board. There was sample code and drivers supplied, both in
binary
and source. The configuration space can be re-programmed via
NVRAM or serial EEPROM, so you can experiment with different
boot-time configuration spaces. I'm not sure how expensive it
was, but we played with one here for a while, before
prototyping
a PCI board that used the 5933, and it was very handy for
checking out various assumptions we had made about the PCI bus
and writing software for devices like the 5933.
As far as monitoring PCI bus activity, you will probably need a
hardware/software combo. VMetro, for one, makes a plug-in
board that gives you some pass/fail monitoring, etc. A much
more sophisticated setup would be to use an HP logic analyzer
mainframe with their prototype analyzer and the supported
FuturePlus PCI bus monitor/driver board set. Our manufacturing
group has used the VMetro board, but I have not used it
myself. I've used the HP setup some, but I'm not terribly
familiar with it (being a software jock, I leave the care and
feeding of the bus analyzers to the hardware folks 8-). It
does point out PCI bus protocol violations, as well as
displaying PCI bus cycles with all the signals labeled on the
logic analyzer.
I'm not affiliated with any of the above mentioned firms, but
we have been (or still are) customers of all of them.
Your mileage may vary...
Cheers,
-- DaveN
===========================================================================
From mike_salameh@plxtech.com Mon Jun 1 22:27 BST 1998
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Date: Mon, 01 Jun 1998 14:03:09 -0700
To: eng267@abdn.ac.uk
From: Mike Salameh <mike_salameh@plxtech.com>
Subject: Re: PCI training hardware
In-Reply-To: <S199806011533.QAA17393@sysa.abdn.ac.uk>
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Hi:
Here are some thoughts.
A company named VMetro, which you can find with a web search, makes
both hardware and software for analyzing PCI bus traffic.
HP also makes some gear for doing this.
Now for some self promotion: My company, PLX, makes a variety of
reference design kits (RDKs) and software development kits (SDK)
related to PCI. Some of the software you can download from our website
free of charge.
The RDKs are PCI adapter boards. The simplest one is called PCI
9050RDK which you can get up and running and doing things on PCI very
quickly. It comes with some software tools similar to DOS debug that
allow you to initiate PCI transactions.
One of the utilities, PLXMon, is available from our website free of
charge and works in any PCI system, regardless of whether it contains
our chips or not.
The PCI SDK is a set of API commands that allow you to move data across
the PCI bus using C commands.
You can see this stuff on our website at www.plxtech.com.
Regards,
Mike Salameh
============================================================================
My 1355-PCI boards are probaly not really appropriate, but I would
definitely recommend the plxmon software. A search for plxmon should
take you to the right place on the PLX site (plxtech.com), as
navigating through their site does not lead to it as easily as it
should. If you'd like me to get off backside and send the URL, please
shout.
Best regards
Paul Walker
--
Paul Walker 4Links phone/fax
paul@walker.demon.co.uk P O Box 816, Two Mile Ash +44 1908
http://www.walker.demon.co.uk Milton Keynes MK8 8NS, UK 566253
==========================================================================
Hallo,
please have a look to that web sides.
http://www.bln.de/hkmessysteme
You'll find tools for PCI development. This tools are also suitable for
training on hardware and as teaching systems. Load down technical
manuals for better understanding. Best regards
Mathias
H+K Messysteme
===========================================================================
Hello,
I saw your posting to PCI mailing list and decided to
point to you our web page http://www.bitboys.fi
There you can find a product called PCIBuilder which
I think might be used to what you are looking for.
Best regards,
Mika Tuomi
--
----- Mika Tuomi, mtuomi@bitboys.fi ----- p. +358-2-548-4247 -----
----- http://www.bitboys.fi/mtuomi ----- c. +358-400-448-660 -----
==========================================================================
From marcus.grindstaff@intel.com Tue Jun 2 20:44 BST 1998
From: "Grindstaff, Marcus" <marcus.grindstaff@intel.com>
To: "\"eng267@abdn.ac.uk\" " <eng267@abdn.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: PCI training hardware
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 11:52:00 -0700
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There is a card from HP (I do not remember the name) that sits on the
PCI bus and it captures the bus cycles (as they go by - in kind of
snarfs them...) The card then stores the cycles in its local memory...
The local memory can be read by an application (also from HP) and
displayed on the screen (it looks like a logic analyser trace).
Basically, it is a PCI logic analyser (without the $160K logic
analyser). I think the cost is < $20K and may be even less expensive
for an educational institution. The biggest benefit is that it is much
easier to use than an LA. So, students could actually learn about the
bus instead of fighting with an LA. It would make an EXCELLENT
educational tool. Check out HPs web site... if you can not find it, let
me know and I can ping some people here that have worked with it
extensively (I have only cursory experience with the card).
Marcus Grindstaff
Applications Engineer
Platform Components Division
Intel Corporation
*** I AM NOT SPEAK FOR INTEL CORPORATION ***
=========================================================================
From DONALD_MACDONALD@HP-ColSprings-om1.om.hp.com Tue Jun 2 21:43 BST 1998
From: DONALD_MACDONALD@HP-ColSprings-om1.om.hp.com
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Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 14:43:25 -0600
In-Reply-To: <S199806011533.QAA17393@sysa.abdn.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: PCI training hardware
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CC: pci-sig-request@znyx.com
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Item Subject: PCI training hardware
The ideal equipment for this purpose is an interactive exerciser
and analyzer tool, either from HP or Vmetro. With a setup of a
standard PC and this type of equipment you can interactively
create traffic from the PCI side into system memory or PCI
memory/io/config space and analyze the generated transactions, OR
you can generate PCI traffic CPU side to the test card while
concurrently monitoring the transactions and programming different
the types of terminations on the test card target.
Now with my HP hat on: Try looking at www.hp.com/go/dvt under
"Products", "E2925A" for the exerciser/analyzer.
Don MacDonald
Hewlett-Packard
Colorado Springs
P.S.
As an "expert" in PCI tools, feel free to drop me an email direct.
=========================================================================
From eric.crabill@xilinx.com Wed Jun 3 18:46 BST 1998
Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 10:36:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: Eric Crabill <eric.crabill@xilinx.com>
To: a.allen@abdn.ac.uk
Subject: PCI prototyping boards...
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Hi,
A friend of mine forwarded your email regarding PCI training
hardware. I've put together a board that uses the Xilinx
PCI LogiCORE as the bus interface. It is intended for
prototyping with this Xilinx product.
I was interested to hear more about what kind of functionality
your colleague is looking for -- it would be possible for me
to do an FPGA design to create the desired feature set and
distribute FPGA bitstreams with the board. Also, since you
are an educational facility, your colleague could request a
copy of the PCI LogiCORE from the Xilinx University Program
and do designs of his own for his class to use.
Anyway, some information about the board: It is full length,
has a 3" by 5" area for wire wrapping. There is support for
DB-9 and DB-15 connectors in the I/O area, and 88 of the FPGA
I/O pins are brought out to standard header pins. These header
pins support wire wrapping or the use of standard 40-pin IDC
connectors to bring signals off the board. The board is
universal, and supports several Xilinx parts in the PQ240
package (Spartan S30, Spartan S40, 4013XL(T), 4028XL(T), and
4062XL(T)).
Also, I should add that this board is my own design and is
in no way affiliated with Xilinx. If you would like more
information, let me know.
Thanks,
Eric Crabill
===========================================================================