ATLCS CONFIGURATION TUTORIAL & HINTS (December 10, 1992)
This guide is designed for the first-time ATLCS (AT/Lantic Configuration
Software) user. The guide presents a general method of configuring the
AT/LANTIC (AT Local Area Network Twisted-Pair Interface Controller), and then
provides a tutorial for three different configurations. After the tutorials,
a section on important concepts and critical details is provided.
Read this document thoroughly before following the guidelines. Understanding
a few simple concepts will make the process much easier, and will enhance
practical use of the AT/LANTIC ethernet adapter. Especially pay attention to
the notes at the end of this guide; they contain critical information that
will make the difference between successful and failed configuration.
CONFIGURING THE ATLANTIC ETHERNET ADAPTER WITH ATLCS.
GENERAL APPROACH
The first time the AT/LANTIC is configured with ATLCS. If the AT/LANTIC
ethernet adapter is in non-software configurable mode (disabled mode), or
protected mode. Do the following:
1. Type "ATLCS" at the DOS command prompt to boot the program.
2. Choose "Configure and Initialize the AT/LANTIC," F1. Press "RETURN"
3. If the adapter is in disabled mode, choose F2, "Configure card from
disabled mode." Otherwise, choose F1, "Configure currently enabled card",
and skip to step 7.
4. If you choose F2, "Configure card from disabled mode." then the "AT/LANTIC
Enable Configuration" menu appears, displaying the current I/O base address
and standard default values for the interrupt, physical media, and board
architecture. Unless you know of a conflict that these values might have
with the machine you are using, configure the board with these values by
selecting "Update registers and new configuration." Of course, you will
want to choose the physical media setting according to whatever connector
you are using.
5. Choose "exit."
6. Select "Initialize board and perform loopback tests," F4.
All of the test should pass with "OK." If there are failures, check to see
if the proper connector is attached. If it still fails, this may not be the
first time that the board has been configured.
Until the EEPROM has been written to with a different I/O base than "disabled
/none" (there are 8 options including disabled mode in "AT/LANTIC change
configuration" menu for the I/O base address selection) the board will "boot"
into disabled mode. This means that until you write to the EEPROM with any
valid I/O base address (not disabled mode), you must always configure from
disabled mode.
After initialization and loopback tests have succeeded,
7. Select "Configure currently enabled card," F1.
8. Accept the current I/O address as a valid I/O base address, unless you
selected a different one in step 4. (The rule you always want to follow
here: choose the value with which the board is configured.) Press return
to continue.
Note: After pressing RETURN, if you see the message "No board was present
at this address", the I/O base address shows on the screen is not a
valid address. Using "F1" to change I/O base address and try again
(press "RETURN", there are 7 I/O base address options). If you can
not find a valid I/O address, the adapter should be in the disabled
mode. At this moment, if you can not figure out the valid address
or mess up the configuration, get out of ATLCS, terminate the ATLCS
execution, power off, then power on. The machine will load the
configuration again from EEPROM.
9. The "AT/LANTIC Change Configuration" menu should be displayed. Select (by
pressing ENTER) a set of values for the I/O base and interrupt that do not
conflict with other devices in your machine. (If you want to keep the same
values as before, that's fine.)
10. Choose an "architecture" - shared memory or I/O port.
11. Leave "boot prom" and "advanced configuration ooptions" alone until you are more
familiar with the adapter. If you are not sure about the options in
"advanced configuration", please use default setting.
12. Choose "Update registers and new configuration."
13. Exit the menu.
14. If you chose "Shared Memory" for your architecture type, hit F3 to set the
memory address. Accept the default, unless you know of a conflict that
the address has with your PC.
15. Run "Initialization and loopback tests," F4.
If you would like to try writing to the EEPROM, so that on the next machine
reboot your configuration will already be present, follow these steps.
16. If everything passes, go back in to "Configure currently enabled card,"
selecting the same I/O base before entering the "AT/LANTIC Change
configuration menu."
17. Select "Update registers and save to EEPROM." This will store your settings
in the AT/LANTIC adapter EEPROM.
STEP BY STEP TUTORIAL:
The following three sections step through three configurations. You may want
to try this before doing any of your own configurations. If you have installed
the adapter (physically put in it your PC in one of the slots) and attached the
connector (thin, thick, twisted pair), there should be no problems with the
tutorial.
1. SAMPLE INITIAL CONFIGURATION
Assume that you have a brand new AT/LANTIC ethernet adapter and it is in the
disabled mode , which you want to configure the adapter to I/O base 300,
interrupt 3, in NE2000 mode. Do the following:
1. Type "ATLCS" at the DOS command prompt.
2. Select "Configure and Initialize the AT/LANTIC," F1.
3. Select "Configure card from disabled mode" F2.
4. The "AT/LANTIC Enable Configuration" menu appears, displaying the current
I/O base address (if it is in disabled mode, the I/O base address will be
default value 0x300) and standard default values for the interrupt, physical
media, and board architecture. Although the default values are the ones
that we have chosen, (i.e. nothing needs to be changed) press return to run
through the possible settings.
5. If you are using a different type of connector than the default, change the
"Physical Media" to your connector type by selecting "Physical Media" and
pressing return until your connector type appears.
6. Make sure that at the end, you have interrupt 3, I/O base address 300, and
board architecture "I/O port." Choose "Update registers to new
configuration."
7. Hit ESCAPE until the "AT/LANTIC initialization and configuration" menu
appears. Select "Initialize board and perform loopback tests".
8. Once the tests have passed, hit escape and then select F1, "Configure
currently enabled card."
9. Choose I/O base 300 (press F1 until it appears), since that is the value
that the board currently holds.
10. Now choose "Update registers and save to EEPROM." The next time that you
boot the PC, the board will come up in I/O mode, with I/O base address 300
and interrupt 3.
11. Fully exit ATLCS.
2. SAMPLE INITIALIZATION FOR NOVELL/NE2000/IO MODE
(The adapter is not in the disabled mode)
Let's assume that you have an AT/LANTIC configured at I/O base 300, interrupt 3,
in NE2000 (I/O) mode (as above), and you want to change the configuration to
I/O base 280, interrupt 5, but leave the board in NE2000 mode. You also want
the new configuration to be present the next time that you boot the machine.
You would do the following:
1. Start ATLCS
2. Select "Configure and Initialize the AT/LANTIC," F1.
3. Select "Configure currently enabled card," F1.
4. The "Select Board's I/O Port Address" screen
will be currently hold I/O address. Hit RETURN to accept this value, since
it is where your adapter is at.
5. The "AT/LANTIC Change Configuration" menu should appear, displaying the
values that the board currently holds. Press the up and down arrow keys
until the line with "I/O Base Address" is selected.
6. Since you want to change the I/O base to 280, hit return until "280" appears
in the rightmost column.
7. Move down a line to select "Interrupt assignment"
8. Hit return until interrupt 5 is showing in the rightmost column.
9. Choose the physical interface that you have connected.
10 Select "Update Registers to new configuration.", press "RETURN".
11. Hit ESCAPE until the "AT/LANTIC initialization and configuration" menu
appears.
Select "Initialize board and perform loopback tests.", press "RETURN".
NOTE: If these tests do not pass, check the physical layer interface to make
sure it is connected.
12. Once the tests have passed, hit escape and then select F1, "Configure
currently enabled card."
13. Choose I/O base 280 (press F1 until it appears), since that is the value
that the board currently holds.
14. Now choose "Update registers and save to EEPROM." The next time that you
boot the PC, the board will come up in I/O mode, with I/O base address
280 and interrupt 5.
15. Fully exit ATLCS.
NOTE: You could have saved the configuration to the EEPROM in step 10, but it
is always a good idea to make sure the configuration works properly
before writing it to the EEPROM.
3. SAMPLE INITIALIZATION FOR SHARED MEMORY/WESTERN DIGITAL MODE.
Assume that the AT/LANTIC ethernet adapter has been configured exactly as was
done in the last example. (The adapter has I/O base address 280, interrupt 5,
and is in NE2000 mode.) You want to change the configuration of the adapter
so that it has I/O base 240, interrupt 9, and is in Shared Memory (Western
Digital) mode, with the shared memory address at D0000.
1. Boot the PC (this guarantees that the values in the adapter are those loaded
from the EEPROM.)
2. Start ATLCS
3. Choose "Configure and Initialize the AT/LANTIC," F1.
4. Select "Configure currently enabled card," F1.
5. The "Select Board's I/O Port Address" screen will be current I/O base
address. If it is not 280, hit F1 until I/O base address 280 appears,
since that is the present value. Press "RETURN".
6. The "AT/LANTIC Change Configuration" menu should appear, displaying the
values that the board currently holds. Press the up and down arrow keys
until the line with "I/O Base Address" is selected.
7. Since you want to change the I/O base to 240, hit return until "240"
appears in the rightmost column.
8. Move down a line to select "Interrupt assignment"
9. Hit return until interrupt 9 is showing in the rightmost column.
10. Select the "Board Architecture" line. Press return once. "Shared Memory"
should appear in the rightmost column.
11. All the other values can remain the same. Select "Update Registers to
new configuration."
12. Hit ESCAPE until the "AT/LANTIC initialization and configuration" menu
appears.
13. Choose "Set shared memory address" F3, Choose a shared memory address that
will not conflict with the other devices in your machine. Usually, the
the default will work just fine. Exit the menu.
14. Select "Initialize board and perform loopback tests," F4.
15. Once the tests have passed, hit escape and then select F1, "Configure
currently enabled card."
16. Choose I/O base 240, since that is the value that the board currently
holds.
17. Now choose "Update registers and save to EEPROM." The next time that you
boot the PC, the board will come up in shared memory mode, with I/O base
address 240 and interrupt 9.
18. Fully exit ATLCS.
USING A DRIVER WITH THE AT/LANTIC
To configure the AT/LANTIC and then test a driver, do the following:
1. Configure the AT/LANTIC using ATLCS as detailed above, selecting the settings
that you wish to use.
2. Write the configuration to the EEPROM and reboot, if you want to keep the
configuration. Or simply exit if you want to run the driver immediately.
EXAMPLE: To use the AT/LANTIC I/O mode ODI driver, "NIC2000.COM" follow
these steps:
(assumes you have Novell NetWare software)
1. Configure the board using ATLCS, choosing "I/O Port" architecture.
2. Write to the EEPROM (if all tests pass).
3. Exit and reboot.
4. Load "LSL.COM" (type "LSL")
5. Load "NIC2000.COM" (type "NIC2000")
Make sure that the NET.CFG file contains the correct data that matches the
configuration of the board.
To connect to a NetWare server,
6. Load "IPXODI.COM"
7. Load "NETX.COM"
ADDITIONAL NOTES/CLARIFICATIONS:
Why the I/O base is critical
In order to change the configuration of the AT/LANTIC ethernet adapter or
to do any testing, the ATLCS software must know the correct I/O address that
the board came up in. This will be the last value written to the EEPROM,
unless the board has been reconfigured and save to the register since booting
the machine. That is why the ATLCS software prompts the user for the current
I/O address before allowing a new configuration to be entered. Keep track of
what I/O base address has been used. If you can not recall the current I/O base
address or you have difficulty with the I/O base address, please run through
every I/O base address option in "SELECT BOARDS I/O PORT ADDRESS" menu by
pressing "F1" and "ENTER". If you still can not find a valid address, the
adapter may be in the "disabled mode". Take the first six steps outlined at
the beginning of this guide for the disabled mode.
Initialization loopback tests
If during initialization and loopback tests, ATLCS alerts that it is "switching
from TPI to THIN" or "switching from THICK to THIN," there may be the absence
of a link. It also may be true that the Physical interface is set improperly.
Interrupts, memory, and I/O addresses.
Avoid random interrupt assignments and address configurations. Know what
interrupts your machine uses, and know what I/O addresses are already
"occupied." Be especially careful with shared memory addresses.
Using a memory manager
If the PC that ATLCS is running on has a high memory manager installed, errors
may occur in initialization and loopback testing. Memory managers such as
EMM386 and 386MAX have been shown to cause problems. Remove these mangers from
your config.sys file and reboot before running ATLCS.
If the error message "Bus board ID code not recognized" occurs in NE2000 mode
and CRC errors occur in Shared memory mode, this may be the problem.
I/O base 360 and shared memory mode
In some cases, an AT/LANTIC at I/O base address 360 in shared memory mode will
encounter problems due to the fact that its I/O space overlaps with a parallel
port. If this occurs, this combination is not possible for normal operation in
your PC.
Disabled mode
If the AT/LANTIC ethernet adapter is shipped in disabled mode, which means
that the first steps to take are the first six steps outlined at the beginning
of this guide. Until the EEPROM is written to with a different configuration,
the board will boot in disabled mode.
Reconfiguring the AT/LANTIC demo board
After having configured the board and having written to the EEPROM,
reconfiguration is very simple. Follow steps 7 through 17, using the current
I/O base address in step 8.
Writing to the EEPROM
First, ONLY WRITE TO THE EEPROM WHEN CONFIGURATION, INITIALIZATION, AND LOOPBACK
HAVE PASSED THOROUGHLY. If an improper configuration is written to the EEPROM,
returning to a working configuration may be more difficult than the safe method
discussed above.
If you feel you have damaged the EEPROM, simply replacing the installed EEPROM
with an unprogrammed one will NOT work. Other vital information resides in the
EEPROM, and without it, the AT/LANTIC will not function properly.
Architectures
The AT/LANTIC can function in two different modes, I/O mode (also called NE2000
mode) and Shared Memory mode (also called Western Digital mode). In I/O mode,
the AT/LANTIC ethernet adapter is compatible with NE2000 drivers, while in
shared memory mode there is a considerable performance enhancement along with
being compatible with Western Digital drivers.
Adding complexity
Start with a simple, safe configuration. Even after you have successfully
configured the computer once, and written to the EEPROM, it is a good idea to
move slowly. Adding other peripherals and changing all the settings at once
can make error tracing difficult.
