Tutorial

Getting Started with vxWorks

The Real Time Systems Course is designed around Power PC 604 single Board Computers in a VME cage. These computers run the vxWorks real time operating systems. The development environment is hosted on a Sun microsystems Ultra Sparc 2. As a result, all development for the course is cross-development, with the code being written, compiled, and debugged on one computer while it is executed on a second.

Document Conventions

There are a lot of machines, windows and applications involved in any cross-development process, so I've tried to use consistent typeface to help sort them out. In general:

This indicates something you should do, or a choice to select

This indicates a window associated with a machine, or a tornado application

If you notice any inconsistencies, or things that are unclear, email the TA and we will clear things up.

Hardware Setup

The hardware setup for this course is shown below.

The user logs in on a computer, either casio or hopper, in the lab which is directly connected to the MVME2604 board (named rt-target1 for casio and rt-target2 for hopper) via a serial line. This computer will act as a terminal for the embedded system, and will also function as an X display for the development computer rt-lab1.

Setting up the system

Because there is a complex set of interactions between a number of different computers, specific changes must be made to the users environment variables. These changes allow the displays to be connected to the correct machines, and allow the various machines to access each others resources. The user must allow both the target systems and the development system access to the terminal. Open an X-Term Window. Note: if you use a CDE Terminal, this will be titled "TERMINAL", the X-Term will be titled "casio" or "hopper".

You must be a member of the cs551rt group to access the software and you must login to the group to allow access:

In the terminal window enter:

	newgrp cs551rt

This will confirm your login ID against the list of group members and set up the correct permissions. If this fails, or requests a password, your ID is not on the access list. Contact either the instructor or the TA for the course.

In the rt-lab1 window enter:

	xhost rt-target1

Since this will be required anytime you access the tornado development environment, you can do this automatically by adding the line to a setup file.

Logging in

All of the Tornado development tools are in the cs551rt directory structure. In addition, the target board is attached to one specific machine (casio for rt-target1, hopper for rt-target2), you must use this machine to use the system. You will complete three different connections to hook everything together:

Access to the Tornado software on rt-lab1.

Connect to casio or hopper.

Make a serial connection from casio [hopper] to rt-target1 [rt-target2]

connecting casio/hopper to rt-lab1 and setting up access to the Tornado software

When you log in with your regular id and password using casio/hopper, you are actually logged in to rt-lab1, using casio/hopper as a terminal.

Now change to the Demo directory.

Enter the following in the rt-lab1 window:

cd /home/cs551rt/Demo

Move the rt-lab1 to the lower left.

Connect to casio/hopper

At this point you must establish a serial connection from casio/hopper to the target system. So far you have been using casio/hopper as a terminal, now we need to access the serial port on casio/hopper.

Open a second terminal window.

In the new terminal window enter:

     rlogin casio (hopper)

This will log you into casio/hopper.

Make the serial connection from casio/hopper to rt-target1/rt-target2

We must now connect the port on casio/hopper to the serial interface on the 2604 board. We will use the kermit communications program to manage the connection.

In the casio/hopper window enter:

     kermit
     set line /dev/cua/a
     conn

You should see the following displayed:

Connecting to /dev/cua/a, speed 9600.
The escape character is Ctrl-\ (ASCII 28, FS)
Type the escape character followed by C to get back,
or followed by ? to see other options.

This shows a successful set up of the connection to the serial line. We now have one window (casio/hopper) which is connected to the target system, and a second window (rt-lab1) connected to the development environment.

Launching Tornado

We are now ready to start the tornado Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

In the rt-lab1 window enter:

     launch &

This will cause the tornado launcher to come up on the screen. This provides access to all the tornado tools. To load and run the first demo program, you must use the launcher to do three things:

Select and reserve a target.

Launch the WindShell application, and

Launch the Browser

Select and Reserve the Target System

The Launcher has four main areas, a menu bar across the top, two side by side windows in the middle, and a tool bar across the bottom.

In Launcher:

Click on rt-target1@rt-lab1 in the left window (rt-target2@rt-lab1 if you are on hopper).

You will see the information associated with this target appear in the right-hand window. Notice that its status is unreserved. If the status shows as reserved, it means that someone else is currently using the system, and you will have to wait.

Launch the WindShell application

The WindShell is a C interpreter that allows you to interact with the vxWorks operating system running on the target. You can directly execute system calls, create and display variables, and load and unload application code.

WindShell is launched by pressing the WindSh button on the bottom tool bar. You must have selected a target first, since WindSh is a connection to a specific target.

In Launcher:

Click the WindSh button.

The shell will come up and display a banner for the tornado IDE, and provide a prompt: ->

Launch the Browser

The Browser displays the current state of the operating system on the target, including what tasks are loaded and executing, the current state of those tasks, and the locations of object modules in memory.

In the Launcher:

click on the Browser button on the tool bar.

This will bring up the Browser.

Arranging the Screen

At this point, the screen is pretty crowded, so let's get things organized.

First, move the Browser to the lower right.

Second, rt-lab1 in the lower left isn't needed anymore for this demo, so iconify it.

You can also iconify the Launcher.

Leave the casio/hopper window (our connection to the target system) in the upper left, along side the icons.

Put the WindShell in the lower left,

If you are using the online version of the tutorial, put netscape in the upper right, you can still get at the Browser, and see the tutorial too. At this point you are ready to proceed with the labs. The first lab is a simple demonstration of some of the aspects of the Real Time System. Lab Manual

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Author: Jim Gunderson
(last modified Jan 10, 2001 at 01:48:32 PM EST)