1. Ironics system controller with SCSI port connected to three disks:
- a 70 Mbyte Quantum disc containing the Application software and Dark Current
images.
- a 10 Mbyte Kodak "Take Ten" Removable disk used for backups.
- a 21 Mbyte Insite Floptical drive which will take 3.5"floppy discs and 3.5"
floptical discs, also for backups and software releases.
2. a VMPU module containing a 68020 processor and local memory.
3. An Opal Colour Graphics controller card supporting 4 pages of 800x600
pixels. The Autoguider display only uses one page.
4. A 2 Mbyte Ram Module currently starting at hex 4000000
5. A second 2 Mbyte Ram Module starting at hex 6000000
6. a DICI interface module, which connects to the FOX chassis to receive
Image data from the CCDc.
7. A Four Port Serial Interface card for the serial lines to the TCS, and the
CCD controllers at each of the three focal stations.
SP1 - TCS vax link for error signals
SP2 - Cassegrain ccd controller link
SP3 - UES ccd controller link
SP4 - Prime ccd controlller link.
The Opal and DICI cards have connectors on the reverse of the VME bus and thus
need to be plugged into the same slots each time. Interrupts are daisy chained
along the backplane so all of the cards have to be contiguous. The exception
is the VMPU card which takes up two slots due to the size of the heatsink on
the CPU. There are links on the backplane to connect the interrupts to the
next door cards, so the CPU card must not be move either. Given these
constraints, the rest of the cards can be plugged in in any order. The order
of the cards defines interrupt priorities so it is advisable to leave things
alone.
The FOX chassis multiplexes data from several sources onto a bus which the DICI
card reads. The cards may be in any order, though it is recommended that they
are in the order of Cassegrain, UES, Prime, and AutoFib, reading from left to
right. All the fibres should be left installed at, though the system can cope
with a fibre missing if that focal station is not in use.
This version of the Autoguider software is designed to switch between the
different serial ports connected to the CCD controllers. The ports are
arranged as shown in the table below.
SP1 TCS link
SP2 Cassegrain controller
SP3 UES CCD controller
SP4 Prime focus CCD controller
Table 3. Serial link port allocations
The Autoguider display is connected to the VME rack via three BNC cables which
are connected to the assembly at the rear of the rack. They go to the
respective connections on the back of the display and should be terminated into
75W.
There is no mouse supported in this version of the Autoguider .
The serial interface driver which controls the ports connected to the CCD
controllers waits for either a Forth ok or ? >>
response from the CCD controller after issuing each command. There is a
timeout mechanism which allows the Autoguider software to continue, albeit with
difficulty, should the CCD controller hang up or not be connected. One serial
port has been assigned to each of the controllers on the telescope, and these
are expected to be left connected. On loading the serial interface handler and
CCD controller interface code, each port is probed for the presence of a ccd
controller. A TTY command is issued to the controller, and if an ok response
is issued within 0.5 seconds, then the controller is deemed to be connected. A
database of connected controllers is maintained. If a controller is not
connected ( ie the TTY timed out ) then no data is sent to the port so that the
software may continue to the point where an error can be reported to the user
or network. The only difference in operation between one controller and
another is the port where the commands are sent. Differences in interpretation
of the image and parameters are controller higher up.