[U-Boot] Seeking PPC BDM resources for MPC860, docs for old MPC860 Eval Board

Alex Perez aperez at alexperez.com
Sun Jan 4 10:34:54 CET 2009


Hi Wolfgang,

On Jan 4, 2009, at 12:28 AM, Wolfgang Denk wrote:

> Dear Alex Perez,
>
> In message <DB05811D-49A2-48E9-BA71-EF45C615F792 at alexperez.com> you  
> wrote:
>>
>> Hi folks! I've recently acquired two MPC860-based eval boards made by
>> EST Corp (now part of Wind River Systems for the last handful of
>> years), and I'm looking to get it booting Linux via u-boot.
>
> You can speculate that (probably very old) ports might exist, but  in
> any  case  you  have to exactly identify these boards first. What are
> the exact names / types of these boards?

Yes, I know for a fact that very old ports exist, and running them for  
the time being would be fine, as a starting-point. The boards  
themselves contain, unbelievably, no model/part numbers. The boards  
simply have EST Corp silk-screened on them, with one American and one  
European phone number which both ring to Wind River sales offices.  
I've seen the board referred to as the SBC860 on-line in a couple of  
places. I am nearly positive this is the board in question.
>
>
>> Additionally, I'm also looking for MPC860 BDM hardware I can make on
>
> For BDM hardware you might look into the (old) MPC4BDM project, see
> http://www.vas-gmbh.de/software/mpcbdm/ ; we still support this BDM
> adapter in the GDB that is inclided with the ELDK. If you have any
> other hardware, look into the UrJTAG project at http://www.urjtag.org/

Thanks, I also discovered this page earlier today. I've got a wiggler- 
compatible JTAG adapter, but I guess I'll have to build this BDM  
module as well.
>
>
>> my own. Does anyone have any suggestions? I got these boards sans ANY
>> documentation, and they have a boatload of DIP switches as well as a
>> dozen or so jumpers scattered across the board. If someone would like
>> a photo of the board, I'll reply with a URL.
>
> He. Without any documentation you cannot do anything. You will need
> detailed hardware specs, ideally including the schematics before you
> can attempt to port U-Boot or Linux to such hardware.

I realize this. The board itself is quite well built, and in all  
likelihood,  it has some sort of integrated ROM monitor. The serial  
ports are strangely on RJ11 connectors, and I don't know what their  
pinouts are. I have a call in to Wind River systems, but
>
> Without documentation these boards are only usable as doorstops.

Understood, which is why I was appealing for help here. It's quite  
likely that someone subscribed to this list has used this eval board  
somewhere along the line. The MPC8xx was essentially superseded by the  
Freescale MPC8xxx, but the MPC860 is still manufactured by Motorola's  
spawn, Freescale.

There's a photo of the board in very high res available at http://flickr.com/photos/liberalex/3164024448/sizes/o/

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my e-mail, Wolfgang. It's most  
appreciated. From examining the mailing list archives, I see that  
there is only light MPC860 related traffic over the last couple of  
years.  The most recent, pertinent patch related to MPC860 is at http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.boot-loaders.u-boot/29065/match=mpc860

Regards,
Alex


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