DS3131DK

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2. SOFTWARE

2.1 Architecture

The DS3131DK software consists of a high-level piece of reference software called “BoSS” that sits on

top of a driver. This driver itself is composed of two discrete layers. The upper layer of the driver consists

of various blocks of C code that are specific to the DS3131. These blocks contain an assortment of

portable functions designed to serve as a low-level API for the BoSS. At the bottom level of the driver is

the commercially available WinDriver, which interfaces with the Windows operating system to the

DS3131DK’s PCI hardware.

Figure 2-1. Software Architecture

Target Application (BoSS)

3134.c

Syswd.c

hdlc.c

drv.c

l1.c

Dma.c

services.c

wd.c

WinDriver

2.2 Introduction to BoSS

The DS3131DK software (BoSS program) is written to run under a PC loaded with a Windows 95/98/NT

operating system using the DS3131DK PCI card. The software includes two parts—the GUI interface

(Figure 2-2) and driver code. It is developed by Visual C++ and using WinDriver to create the driver.

The software provides:

§ a simple demonstration of the DS3131 with the ability to set the device into a number of

different configurations

§ software drivers for the DS3131

§ the ability to explore and load new data into the BoSS registers

§ a utility to dump the internal BoSS registers to a file and to load BoSS from a file

§ user-configurable DMA parameters

The software does not implement all of the functions available in the DS3131. The user controls the

software through a main GUI interface, as shown in Figure 2-2. The software implements 28 ports,

coupled with 28 independent bidirectional HDLC channels. However, if a field in the main GUI is shaded

gray, the function is not available.