Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Kevin Tsubota <[email protected]> · Thu, 19 Sep 2002 16:08:47 -1000

Here at Keck we went from FRC40s to MVME-2307s with 64MB RAM.
This is with EPICS R3.13.0beta12 and VxWorks 5.3.1 (Tornado-1).

We ran into two issues:
- we had disable the floating point underflow/overflow
- we also ran into the VxWorks 24-bit relocation error

Kevin Tsubota
W.M. Keck Observatory

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andrew Johnson [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2002 11:37 AM
> To: Dennis Armstrong
> Cc: Tech Talk (EPICS)
> Subject: Re: Recommendations for Power PC VME cards
> 
> 
> Hi Dennis,
> 
> Dennis Armstrong wrote:
> 
> > We are considering an upgrade to our systems to use the 
> Power PC range
> > of VME CPU cards .  So the  question is  which VME CPU 
> cards do EPICS
> > users  use?
> 
> APS have experience with the MVME2700 and MVME2100 boards, 
> and we're in 
> the process of getting the MVME5100 for some applications.  
> The latter 
> family appears to be where Motorola are concentrating their 
> development 
> efforts, although the other lines aren't likely to be closed 
> out anytime 
> soon.  To use the 5100 series you'll need Tornado 2.1 or 2.2, 
> whereas the 
> older boards can be used with earlier versions even back to 
> T1.0.1 (not 
> that I'd recommend that though).
> 
> You should look at your I/O requirements for the CPU board - 
> if you don't 
> need more serial ports and other I/O then don't pay extra for 
> stuff you 
> don't need.  The MVME2100 is a low-cost board which is 
> slightly slower 
> than the 2300/2400/2600/2700 devices but works fine for most purposes.
> 
> > Which are most compatible with the EPICS software?
> 
> In general EPICS compatibility isn't likely to be a problem 
> for almost any 
> PowerPC CPU.  There may be some changes you might want/need 
> to make to the 
> BSP to get some drivers going, but most devices Just Work? 
> (as long as 
> you're using EPICS R3.13.6 or later).
> 
> - Andrew
> -- 
> "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans." 
> - John Lennon
> 

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System