Commtech's Fastcom Product Support Blog

New Software Release: FSCC Family – fscc_2012_04_27

Matt — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 19:52:04 +0000

04/27/2012 – LabVIEW

Commtech is pleased to announce the initial release of our FSCC Family instrument driver for National Instrument’s LabVIEW.

fscc_2012_04_27.zip

Motherboard Chipset Incompatibility

Matt — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:53:08 +0000

Working with the motherboard manufacturer Gigabyte we have discovered an incompatibility between the SuperFSCC/4-PCI card and the onboard PCIe to PCI bridge chip (ITE IT8892E CXS). I have been assured that the issue has been identified and will be applied to future motherboards manufactured by Gigabyte. The manufacturer of the bridge chip, ITE, has released a new version of the chip that addresses these problems: ITE IT8892E EXS.

If you have an afflicted motherboard you may be able to contact Gigabyte support and get them to replace the chip for you.

I am trying to get more details from ITE about the cause of the failure.

SuperFSCC/104+ Power Consumption

Matt — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 20:14:19 +0000

I have recently had reason to do some power measurements on the SuperFSCC/104+ RS422 card. Here are my results.

2 ports set to RS422, idling 1′s: 400mA
1port set to RS422, 1 port RS485, idling 1′s: 300mA
2 ports set to RS485, idling: 200mA
2 ports set to RS422, transmitting and receiving random data @ 1Mbps on both ports: ~450mA

I have messed around with the settings a bit and I don’t see any big changes in the power consumption. I feel pretty good saying that maximum operational power draw of the card is 500mA.

New Software Release: FSCC Family – fscc_2011_09_21

Matt — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 21:27:37 +0000

I may have missed posting a few software updates here and there, so here is a bit of a rollup:

09/21/2011 – Lnux_v1

Add fc-async module to the async code and removed the bits about patching the kernel for 2.6 and up.

09/15/2011 – Linux_v2

Fix build errors caused by new kernel requirements. init_MUTEX(x) removed in 2.6.37

09/14/2011 – Linux_v1

Fix build warnings and errors caused by new kernel requirements. This has been tested to build up to kernel 3.0

07/11/2011 – Windows

Modify behavior of Isosync mode to prevent system hang when large number of interrupts occur on a modem control line. Please enable Isosync mode as boot default, then reboot before connecting external clock signal.

05/19/2011 – Windows

Driver version 1.0.0.94 – basically just a recompile to fix some previous build errors Including update fscc_basic_settings with tooltips and new boards recognized Signing all drivers

03/14/2011 – Windows

Had to update the fscc.cat file to allow installation in win7-64

fscc_2011_09_21

New Software Release: FSCC Family – fscc-linux v2.1.2

Matt — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 21:23:44 +0000

Version 2.1.2 (09/14/2011)

Fix build error with kernels 2.6.37 and up
Fix problem with SuperFSCC/4-LVDS installation
See changesets for full list of changes

http://hg.commtech-fastcom.com/fscc-linux/downloads

New Software Release: FSCC Family – fscc-linux v2.1.0

Matt — Mon, 02 May 2011 19:59:06 +0000

Version 2.1.0 (05/02/2011)

Fix comments in code
Add make help target
Migrate from google code to bitbucket
Added code and examples for various transmit modes
Fixed dma insmod parameter
Add SuperFSCC-LVDS and SuperFSCC/104 to the driver
See changesets for full list of changes

http://hg.commtech-fastcom.com/fscc-linux/downloads

FCore Firmware Update: 9.0B/4.16

Matt — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 21:39:38 +0000

Firmware change on most shipped boards as of April 05, 2011:

FSCC Family = Base FCore version 9.0B
SuperFSCC Family = Base FCore version 4.16

Fix XREP with TXT. Keeps the frame from restarting immediately when XREP and TXT are both set.

Online clock calculator

Matt — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 20:23:48 +0000

I just found a tool online that will calculate the programming data for an ICS307-02 clock generator that is used on our Async335 cards as well as the ESCC-PCI-335.

http://www.idt.com/?app=calculators&device=307_02

The input frequency is always 18.432MHz.
Desired output frequency is what you are trying to get.
Allowable Output Frequency Accuracy: Lower is better
Clock 2 output: Off
Output Driver: CMOS
Crystal Load Capacitance: 00
Allowable Duty Cycle Range: 45-55
Operating Temperature: -40 to 85 C

FSCC Linux Driver v2

Will — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 20:17:22 +0000

We have officially released a 2.x driver for our FSCC series of cards using Linux.

This release is a departure from the 1.x series most of you are used to. We have broken API compatibility with the hopes of creating a new driver platform designed to use current kernel practices and ease as many complaints as we can from the old series.

If you already have an application designed to use the 1.x series of drivers you don’t have to make the switch. If you haven’t yet started application development we recommend using the new series. While compatibility has been broken it is very similar to the 1.x series of FSCC drivers so users of the old series should have no problem picking up the new driver.

If you would like to get started using this new driver start by download the driver from the following link then following the README file included.

~~http://code.google.com/p/fscc-linux/~~

http://hg.commtech-fastcom.com/fscc-linux

Considering this is a new driver if you find any issues or have any recommendations please let us know. Any information you can give us will help our entire user base.

New Software Release: FSCC Family – fscc_2011_01_05

Matt — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 21:18:01 +0000

01/05/2011

Update writereg example program. It was incorrectly checking the return variable of deviceIoControl() for information. This will resolve any issues that you may see with IOCTL_FSCCDRV_WRITE_REGISTER saying that it failed when it really passed.
Fix line endings on Visual Studio project files and .txt files on the CD

12/29/2010

New linux code that will fix build errors on newer kernels.

fscc_2011_01_06