Re: [casper] NB! Updates to the CASPER tools and libraries

[Wesley New]

Hi Dave, thanks for your comments.

On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 5:28 PM, David MacMahon wrote:

> Hi, Wes,
>
> Thanks for taking on this effort!  Here are a few comments:
>
> On Sep 3, 2012, at 4:43 AM, Wesley New wrote:
>
> > Removing the following yellow blocks:
> > XAUI - Only supported by BEE2 and iBOB
>
> I didn't realize that XAUI is not supported on the ROACH.  I guess if
> someone needs it on ROACH they can update the existing yellow block from
> the BEE2/iBOB branch to work on ROACH and reintroduce it into the library.
>

Jason has corrected me on this, the XAUI block is supported by ROACH, so I
wont be removing it.

>
> > The environment variable BEE_XPS_LIB_PATH is changing to XPS_BASE_PATH,
> this will mean a change to your matlab startsg scripts
>
> You're probably planning on something like this anyway, but as a migration
> aid, please update the scripts to check for the new variable first.  If the
> new variable is not set, then check for the old variable (and print a
> deprecation warning).  If you want, you could print a big error message
> instead of a warning to force the user to update the variable right away,
> but I suspect that some users may need the intervention of others to get
> things like that changed.  The main point is please don't have the scripts
> fail silently/mysteriously if the user has not updated the name of this
> environment variable.  I guess the same thing goes for the value of the
> variable (i.e. check the last component of the path to see if it is still
> "xps_lib" and print a warning/error message).  It's always nicer to get
> friendly informative error messages than cryptic ones from tools failing in
> unforeseen ways.
>
Good point, Ill definitely implement it in this way.

>
> I suppose there could be a corresponding cleanup of the BEE2/iBOB branch
> (e.g. remove the QDR yellow block, etc.), but I imagine that is not high on
> your priority list. :-)
>
As you noted, this is not on my list of To-Dos.

>
> Thanks again,
> Dave
>
>

Re: [casper] NB! Updates to the CASPER tools and libraries

[David MacMahon]

Hi, Wes,

Thanks for taking on this effort!  Here are a few comments:

On Sep 3, 2012, at 4:43 AM, Wesley New wrote:

> Removing the following yellow blocks:
> XAUI - Only supported by BEE2 and iBOB

I didn't realize that XAUI is not supported on the ROACH.  I guess if someone 
needs it on ROACH they can update the existing yellow block from the BEE2/iBOB 
branch to work on ROACH and reintroduce it into the library.

> The environment variable BEE_XPS_LIB_PATH is changing to XPS_BASE_PATH, this 
> will mean a change to your matlab startsg scripts

You're probably planning on something like this anyway, but as a migration aid, 
please update the scripts to check for the new variable first.  If the new 
variable is not set, then check for the old variable (and print a deprecation 
warning).  If you want, you could print a big error message instead of a 
warning to force the user to update the variable right away, but I suspect that 
some users may need the intervention of others to get things like that changed. 
 The main point is please don't have the scripts fail silently/mysteriously if 
the user has not updated the name of this environment variable.  I guess the 
same thing goes for the value of the variable (i.e. check the last component of 
the path to see if it is still "xps_lib" and print a warning/error message).  
It's always nicer to get friendly informative error messages than cryptic ones 
from tools failing in unforeseen ways.

I suppose there could be a corresponding cleanup of the BEE2/iBOB branch (e.g. 
remove the QDR yellow block, etc.), but I imagine that is not high on your 
priority list. :-)

Thanks again,
Dave

[casper] NB! Updates to the CASPER tools and libraries

[Wesley New]

Good Day All,

I am writing to provide a heads-up with regards to the clean up of the
toolflow.

The idea is to remove support for the older hardware platforms (iBOB, BEE2
and CORR) as they are no longer supported by Xilinx tools after 10. We will
provide a tag to the version of the tools which supports the older hardware.

We will also be updating the names of things such as environment variables
and scripts, to remove references to the legacy hardware.

Here is a list of things that I have changed in the clean_up branch of the
SKA MLIB_DEVEL repository.
This will be migrated to the master branch when it has all been
tested.


Removing iBOB, BEE2 and CORR related code from the scripts

Removing the following yellow blocks:
XAUI - Only supported by BEE2 and iBOB
CORR_mxfe - Only supported by CORR
CORR_fr  - Only supported by CORR
CORR_adc - Only supported by CORR
CORR_dac - Only supported by CORR
iBOB_lwip - Only supported by iBOB
frame_buffer - Only supported by iBOB
vsi - Only supported by iBOB
dac_iBOB - Only supported by iBOB
sram - Only supported by iBOB

Editing the following yellow blocks:
XSG core config - Removed iBOB, BEE2 and CORR options
GPIOs - Removed iBOB, BEE2 and CORR options
DRAM - removed support for multiple DIMMs as this is only supported by the
iBOB

The folder xps_lib is changing to xps_base, as it contains the base support
packages for each of the supported hardware platforms
Changing bee_xps to casper_xps, ie to run the former "bee_xps" now use
"casper_xps"
BEE_XPS_Blockset changing to CASPER XPS Blockset
The environment variable BEE_XPS_LIB_PATH is changing to XPS_BASE_PATH,
this will mean a change to your matlab startsg scripts
Change the name of bee_hw_routes.m to hw_routes.m
Removing the GAVRT library.


If you can want anything to remain or can think of anything else that can
go, please let me know, I welcome any comments and ideas.

Regards

Wes