Re: [ECOS] ethernet download

[Gary Thomas <gthomas at redhat dot com>]

On 24-Aug-2001 Grant Edwards wrote:
> 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.

Yup, yup, yup.  However, sometimes the "customer" comes to you
without any of these things and expects miracles :-)