From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Grant Edwards To: Gary Thomas Cc: "Trenton D. Adams" , Mark Salter , ecos-discuss@sourceware.cygnus.com Subject: Re: [ECOS] ethernet download Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 09:00:00 -0000 Message-id: <20010824110249.A3748@visi.com> References: <20010824104455.B3724@visi.com> X-SW-Source: 2001-08/msg00832.html On Fri, Aug 24, 2001 at 09:59:25AM -0600, Gary Thomas wrote: > > >> How about hardware with no serial port - only an ethernet > >> connection? Yes, we have worked with such beasties... fun, in > >> the purest sense :-) > > > > My version of RedBoot listens on a TCP port. You push the > > reset button then you've got 10 seconds to telnet to RedBoot. > > Once you've opened a telnet session, it just like you're > > connected to a serial console. > > Actually, they all work that way :-) The real problem is when > you're just bringing things up initially (or making major > changes to the startup code). Trying to debug with only a > network connection in this environment can be more than tricky. That's when you use hardware-assisted debugging: either a full-up in-circuit emulator or something like a JTAG interface. Wasting several weeks of engineering time (and marketing window) to save a few thousand dollars is false economy. Or layout the board with a debugging serial port (something with a nice big FIFO that will run at 115K baud or higher) and then don't populate that portion of the board in production. Or put a header of some sort on the board so that you can attach a daughterboard with a UART. Something as simple as a three pin SPI or I2C connector can be used to interface to a UART while you're debugging. -- Grant Edwards grante@visi.com