TI Santa Barbara - BIOSuite FAQ

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Board Support

1. The following error message appears when trying to load a program in BIOScope:

Cannot communicate with DSP board. Verify I/O settings and check for conflicts with other boards in your system. Reset the DSP board and try again.

If you have changed the default settings of the I/O map switches on the target board; you may need to define an environment variable. BIOScope goes though the following sequence to locate the board’s I/O address:

Checks the command line –p option
Checks D_OPTIONS environment variable (TI tools)
If no board I/O addresses have been found, it uses the default value of the board.

Example, the board I/O address is set to 0x320. You can pass a command line parameter to scope to specify the I/O address of the board. You can include this in a Windows 95 shortcut or invoke scope from the command line, e.g.,

scope.exe –p 320

Or enter the following environment variable in your autoexec.bat:

set S_OPTIONS=-p 320

You can refer to the board documentation for further information on D_OPTIONS. Also, refer to Chapter 1 'Environment Variables' in your Getting Started Guide and the PRODUCT RELEASE NOTES for additional information on environment variables.

If the steps described above do not resolve the problem, the hardware might be conflicting with some other board. Check the I/O settings for the other devices in your computer to see if there are any conflicts.

2. Can BIOSuite be used with other custom boards besides the defaults?

Once a configuration is set up, save and then copy the ***.cdb file created into the include directory (%BIOSROOT%\include). The file will now appear in the Configuration Tools under Fileà New as an optional template.

3. Does DSP/BIOS support extended memory on C548/C549 board?

Given that the DSP/BIOS user follows the below guidelines:

When using multiple program pages, the program memory address range (0x0000 to 0x7FFF) is common to all pages. For example, for OVLY = 1, addresses 0x0000 to 0x7FFF in ANY page are mapped to on chip RAM (addresses 0x0000 to 0x7FFF on page 0). By putting the DSP/BIOS code and the hardware interrupt routines in this "common" address range. One could have several "instantiations" of DSP/BIOS (as many as pages), although DSP/BIOS is physically only using up some memory in the common memory page.

If one needs a signal to run an algorithm that is not on this common page (page 0), create a stub function for this signal that looks like this (in pseudo-code):

myfxn () { 'FCAL algorithmfxn()' }

algorithmfxn() is the algorithm code that has been located on page n. The function that is associated to the signal is not algorithmfxn(), but myfxn(). myfxn () is located on page 0 (the same as DSP/BIOS), and just 'far calls' the real algorithm code.

By setting signals this way, context switches do not need to be concerned with saving/restoring XPC, etc.

4. Can the data structures required by the DSP/BIOS be placed anywhere within the data space?

Virtually all data in the DSP/BIOS can be moved to any valid data location (on-chip, off-chip,...). The only requirement is that 4 words be reserved in on chip memory (data page 0). These words are used to point to the system data page, hold timer counter registers, and the TRC trace mask. The user can freely place all the other data.