Online telecon notes for June 5, 2002.

Attending:

• Zhigang Wang (UCSC/TKR)
• Byron Leas (NRL/CAL)
• Dan Wood (NRL/CAL)
• Connie Houchens (GSFC/ACD)
• Jim La (GSFC/ACD)
• Mike Huffer (SLAC/ELX)
• Alicia Kavelaars (SLAC/I&T-SVAC)
• Eduardo do Couto e Silva (SLAC/I&T-SVAC)
• Larry Wai (SLAC/I&T-IFCT)
• Selim Tuvi (SLAC/I&T-Online)
• Ric Claus (SLAC/I&T-Online), minutes author

The discussion started with the progress on the pseudo-AEM. Curt has completed the work on the pseudo-AEM and Selim has tested it in the Online environment. As reported earlier, the pseudo-AEM was implemented in COMM card firmware. With the new firmware, COMM cards are now capable of supporting TEM command/response, GLT and AEM functionality, depending on initialization method and jumper settings. Connie sent the ACD’s COMM card back to SLAC for upgrading with the new firmware. That has been done and the module, together with a tested COMM card/FREE board cable, was shipped back to Goddard yesterday (Tuesday) evening. [It appears to still be stuck in SLAC’s shipping & receiving department as of 17:00 Wednesday.] Ric and Mike reminded ACD that they will need to provide Connie with front end electronics.

The COMM card firmware changes are such that a new release of Curt’s low-level driver code is necessary in order to have the system work with the revised card. Mike reported that Curt has completed the low-level driver code. Selim expects to have a new Online release with these changes bundled in ready by the end of the week.

In order for COMM card users to be able to use future Online releases, their cards will have to be upgraded. Future releases will not work with unmodified cards. We will strive not to allow this situation to develop again. Mike is planning to send the required VHDL code and instructions to Jim Ampe at NRL so that CAL can upgrade their cards.

Selim is working on the LabVIEW-VxWorks interface. He expects to have it complete and ready for bundling into the release that he plans to deploy at the end of this week.

Connie reported that she is making good progress with the AEM regression script she is putting together. She expects to have an initial version ready tomorrow.

Byron said he has a temInit script ready for submission to the Online code repository.

Dan talked about his progress on the event data server. He expects to have it done next week and will forward it to the Online group.

CAL is working on a Python/XML interface to SCL for test configuration purposes. Byron will send Online an example for education purposes.

Byron reported a CAL self-trigger problem that is under investigation.

Byron had posted to one of the Online forums a problem with issuing the RESET dataless command to the GCRC. Ric had conjectured that perhaps it is due to the method of invocation. The conjecture turns out to be false. Investigation of the problem uncovered a bug in Curt’s driver. However, fixing the bug didn’t solve the problem. We learned from Jim Ampe that the RESET command is not implemented in the CRC chip.

Alicia is working on creating a configuration database in MS-Access and accessing it from SCL with its ODBC capabilities. While there are many ODBC compliant database products, we are required to use MS-Access by the I&T Manager.

Mike gave more details on the AEM work. He will update the AEM document to reflect recent changes and have it ready for distribution with the next Online release. He explained that the pseudo-AEM is capable of data taking and warned that the event format it produces might not be the final one due to possible changes in the ACD front-end electronics. Having the pseudo-AEM be able to take data was not in the original plan, so this is a bonus. Mark Freytag, a SLAC engineer, has started work on the real AEM.

Mike described the TEM work being done for TKR. Currently there is only one TKR front end (MCM) in existence. More are being built.

Mike explained that after the TKR work is done; he and Curt will start work on the TIC portion of the TEM. This is the section that houses the environmental quantities.

Mike told us that 13 more TEMs are being built. They should be ready in the September time frame along with various front end chips.

Mike asked CAL what the CRC hard RESET is supposed to do. Byron thought that it should cause all registers to go to their quiescent state. Mike has evidence that that doesn’t happen. Byron will check it out.

Zhigang is expecting a test stand system this month. Mike inquired about the availability of a VME crate, COMM cards, etc. for him. COMM cards need to be built. Larry inquired who would be writing TKR SCL scripts. Ric’s understanding is that Zhigang and Johan Cohen-Tenugi are responsible.

Jim inquired about the fidelity of the pseudo-AEM and whether it is the “AEM simulator”. Ric replied that the pseudo-AEM allows one to interact with the ACD’s FREE board through SCL. It also supports the AEM registers. The combination’s fidelity is not a whole lot better than what is currently provided by Online’s SCL implementation. However, it does provide the ability to gain experience with the VxWorks environment and to make tests involving data taking.