JPH063581B2 - Micro program storage method - Google Patents

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method of storing a microprogram to be loaded in a control storage device in an external storage device such as a magnetic disk device.

[Background of the Invention]

In recent years, as a data processing system is required to have higher functionality and flexibility to change specifications, even in a small computer system, most of the control storage device for storing a micro program tends to be configured by a rewritable RAM. .

A problem when the control storage device is configured by the RAM is how to store the microprogram to be loaded in the RAM of the control storage device in the external storage device and how to load it. Has been devised. JP-A-58-208850 discloses a method of using a service processor, storing the microprogram in an external storage device of the service processor, and loading the microprogram in the control storage. An example of using such a technique is as shown in FIG.

In FIG. 6, reference numeral 1 is a service processor, and the central processing unit 12 in the service processor 1 loads a microprogram into the RAM section 22 of the control storage unit 2 of the main central processing unit 3. In this system, the system program is stored in an external storage device 5 such as a magnetic disk device, and the microprogram of the main central processing unit 3 is stored in an external storage device 13 such as a floppy disk device in the service processor 1. Has been done. The service processor 1 is connected to a read only memory (ROM) 11 in which a program for controlling the external storage device 13 is stored. The service processor 1 can transfer data from the auxiliary storage device 13 to the main storage device 4, read data from the main storage device 4, and read data from the R of the control storage device 2.
Data can be written to the AM section 22.

In this configuration, the control storage device R of the main central processing unit 3
To load the microprogram into the AM unit 22, the service processor 1 once reads the microprogram in the external storage device 13 into the main storage device 4, and transfers the microprogram data from the main storage device 4 to the control storage device 2. It is executed by In this system, it is necessary to have an external storage device 13 for storing a microprogram dedicated to the service processor, independently of the service processor 1 and the magnetic disk device 5 storing the system program.

When the external storage device 13 dedicated to hardware is not used, the magnetic disk device 5 for storing the system program
A method of storing the file of the microprogram can be considered. In this case, a file area dedicated to hardware is allocated to a specific address in the magnetic disk device 5, and if there is no service processor or service processor, a magnetic program is generated by a microprogram in the control storage ROM section 21 of the central processing unit 3. The microprogram in the disk device 5 is read into the main storage device 4 and the control storage R
Load it on AM22. However, in this method, the file for storing the microprogram is assigned to a specific address in the magnetic disk device 5, so that the file allocation in the magnetic disk device 5 depends on the hardware, which is not preferable. This is because, when using the same system program in multiple types of computer systems that have the same architecture in a series, the capacity of this dedicated hardware file may change depending on the type of computer. This can be a problem above. Moreover, it is expected that there will generally be a plurality of types of magnetic disk devices 5 to be used,
At this time, the micro program loader needs to consider the specifications of each magnetic disk device, such as the number of cylinders, heads, and sectors of the magnetic disk device 5, which is complicated. In such a case, it is difficult to create a microprogram loader with a small capacity microprogram in the control storage ROM section of the central processing unit 3, and a service processor is generally required.

When the magnetic disk device 5 has a micro program file, the file allocation is not fixed to a specific address, the micro program file is treated as any one file in the system program, and the utility program of the system program is used. It is also possible to allocate and store the file.

However, also in this case, the micro program loader must follow the procedure of searching the directory in the magnetic disk created by the system program, knowing the address of the micro program storing file, and reading it. Further, normally, the file address stored in the directory is stored as a logical address in order to avoid depending on the hardware specifications of the magnetic disk device. Therefore, from the logical address to the physical address of the magnetic disk device. Need to be converted to. These processes are still complicated, and it is difficult to process them only with a small-capacity microprogram in the control storage ROM section of the central processing unit 3, and a service processor is essential.

[Object of the Invention]

An object of the present invention is to load a microprogram into a control memory only with a microprogram in a control memory having a relatively small capacity, and to use a microprogram at an arbitrary address stored in an external storage device for storing a system program. It is to provide a method that can be executed from a file.

[Outline of Invention]

The present invention is characterized in that the microprogram stored in the control storage device is stored as one file in the external storage device, and the storage address of this file is stored in a fixed address in this external storage device. .

Example of Invention

In the present invention, as one file in a magnetic disk device which is an external storage device for storing a system program,
A microprogram file to be stored in the control storage device is created and the microprogram is stored. For allocating and storing a file that stores a microprogram, a file allocator or file copy that is a utility of a system program can be used. Files are copied from another external storage device (floppy disk device). After storing the microprogram, the address information generation program is started.

The program checks the storage address of the microprogram file in the external storage device (magnetic disk device),
This is converted into its physical address, that is, the cylinder, head, and sector address according to the specifications of the external storage device. Further, when the file is spread over a plurality of tracks, it is usually impossible to read by one read start, so the address of that track and the number of sectors occupied by the microprogram file in that track are calculated for each track. Create multiple address information blocks. The address information block thus created is stored at a fixed address in the system directory that is normally allocated from the beginning (0 cylinder, 0 head, 0 sector) in the external storage device (magnetic disk device). With the above operation, the address information generation program ends.

Through the above processing, the microprogram file is stored as one arbitrary file in the external storage device (magnetic disk device) that stores the system program. Access to that file reads the fixed address of the system directory. You can get access information just by doing it very easily. Further, if the fixed address in the system directory is set to a specific sector in 0 cylinders and 0 tracks of the external storage device, the number of cylinders, heads, and sectors that differ depending on the specifications of the external storage device (magnetic disk device) can be obtained. There is no need to be conscious. It is not difficult to find an unused area of about 1 sector in 0 cylinders and 0 tracks and use it for storing the access information.

By having an access information block for a microprogram file with such a fixed address, access to the microprogram file does not need to be conscious of the specifications regarding the capacity of the external storage device (magnetic disk device) in which the microprogram file is stored. Since it can be easily performed, it can be executed by a microprogram having a relatively small number of steps in the control storage ROM section.

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. First
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Reference numeral 3 is a central processing unit, 4 is a main storage device, 21 is a control storage device including a read-only memory (ROM),
Reference numeral 22 is a control storage device composed of a writable memory (RAM). Reference numerals 5 and 6 are external storage devices, 5 is a magnetic disk device for storing a system program, and 6 is a floppy disk device, which is used to copy the system program and the micro program file to the magnetic disk device 4. , 21, 22, 5, 6 are all connected to a central processing unit, and data transfer from the magnetic disk unit 5 and the floppy disk unit 6 to the main memory unit 4 is performed under the control of a microprogram in the control storage ROM section 21. It can be performed. In addition, from the main storage device 4 to the control storage RAM
It has a function of transferring data to the section 22.

IPL (initial program load) of this system
Can be performed from either the magnetic disk device 5 or the floppy disk 6, and can be designated by the operation panel switch of the central processing unit 3. The program does not exist on the magnetic disk 5 at the time of system generation, and is loaded from the floppy disk device 6 to the magnetic disk device 5 at the time of system generation. Once the magnetic disk device 5 is loaded by the system generation, the magnetic disk device 5 thereafter performs an IPL. This will be described below.

When the system is created, the magnetic disk device 5 generally has
The system program and micro program files have not been created yet and do not exist. At this time, the microprogram loaded in the control storage RAM 22 from the floppy disk device 6 is read into the main storage device 4 by the microprogram stored in the control storage ROM 21 and loaded into the control storage RAM 22 to load the microprogram. Complete.

The floppy disk medium used at this time is created as a dedicated medium for loading the microprogram, and the file is allocated so that the microprogram file can be easily accessed.

When the microprogram loading from the floppy disk device 6 is completed, the system program is loaded from the floppy disk device 6 to the magnetic disk device 5, and after the loading is completed, the IPL from the magnetic disk device 5 is completed.
Is possible.

However, in this state, although the microprogram is loaded in the control storage RAM 22, the magnetic disk device 5 is not yet loaded.
Since the micro program file is not created therein, the micro program cannot be loaded from the magnetic disk device 5.

FIG. 4 shows a procedure for storing the microprogram file in the magnetic disk device 5 and creating address information for accessing the microprogram file.

In the first step 101, a utility program of a system program allocates a file for storing a micro program. In the second step 102, the utility program of the system program copies the microprogram file in the floppy disk device 6 to the file in the magnetic disk device 5 allocated in the first step. In the first and second steps, the microprogram storage file is not treated as a special file dedicated to hardware, but is created as a general file handled by the system program. In the third step 103, the address information generation program calculates the microprogram storage address information from the microprogram file start address and the file capacity in the magnetic disk device 5, and writes the address information to a fixed address in the system directory. . In this embodiment, the fixed address is 0 cylinder, 0 head, 18 sectors, and this sector is reserved as a dedicated sector for storing microprogram storage address information.

Details of the third step will be described with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing how files are allocated in the magnetic disk device 5.

Some tracks starting at 0 cylinder, 0 head, 0 sector are assigned as system directories. Among them, 0 cylinder, 0 head, and 0 sector 52 are areas where the bootstrap program is stored.
The cylinder, 0 head, and 18 sectors 51 are assigned as areas for storing microprogram storage address information.

FIG. 3 shows the contents of information stored in 18 sectors, which are generated by the address information generation program.
When the address information generation program is started, the microprogram storage file 53 in the system directory
The start address is acquired from the name of. Usually, the head address is acquired in the form of a block number from the head of the volume. From the acquired head block number and the type of the magnetic disk device 5, the number of cylinders, the number of heads,
Knowing the number of sectors, calculate the cylinder, head, and sector addresses of the microprogram storage file. The number of tracks in which data is stored is calculated from the capacity of the microprogram given as a parameter in advance, and the cylinder, head, sector address and number of sectors of the track are calculated for each track. . Based on the calculated data, a table (microprogram storage address information) shown in FIG. 3 is created,
Write to 0 cylinder, 0 head, 18 sectors 51. The first entry in the table shown in FIG.
It is an identification character that indicates that a microprogram is stored in Is written. The second entry is data indicating from which address of the control memory the data is to be loaded, the third entry is data indicating to which address of the main storage device 4 the magnetic disk device 5 is to be read, and the fourth entry is This is data indicating the number of words of the microprogram to be loaded into the control memory, and the data of the second to fourth entries is given to the address information generation program in advance as a parameter.

The _number of (n + 1) entries of the fifth entries BLK ₀ to BLK _n is determined depending on how many tracks the microprogram storage file spans, and the entries are secured by the number of spanning tracks. When the microprogram file extends over three tracks as shown in FIG. 2, three entries are secured and the cylinder, head, sector address and sector number of each track are stored. The next entry of the final block BLK _n is a code indicating the end of the address information, and (FFFF) ₁₆ is set.

When the microprogram file and its storage address information are generated by the processing described above, the microprogram can be loaded from the magnetic disk device 5.

Magnetic disk device 5 executed by control storage ROM 21
Figure 5 shows the procedure for loading the microprogram from the above.

When the IPL from the magnetic disk device 5 is started after the power is turned on, the microprogram in the control storage ROM 21
In step 201, it is checked whether the micro program has been loaded into the control storage RAM 22. The check can be easily performed by checking the sum or checking whether a specific data pattern is written in a specific address. If it has already been loaded, the microprogram load is omitted, and the bootstrap program in the 0 cylinder, 0 head, and 0 sector is read, and the bootstrap program is only activated. (Steps 5 and 6) If it is the end of loading, the second step 202 is to read 0 cylinders, 0 heads and 18 sectors in which microprogram storage address information is stored. In the third step 203, the first 8 bytes of the read data are Check that it is 8 characters. If the patterns are different, it is considered that there is no microprogram file in the magnetic disk device 5, and the processing is stopped. In the fourth step 204, the magnetic disk device 5 is accessed by the microprogram storage information of the read table, read to the main storage address specified in the table, and specified in the address of the control storage ROM 22 specified in the same table. Write the number of words and load the microprogram. At this time, the magnetic disk device 5
Since the microprogram storage file address in each is given by cylinder, head, sector address, and number of sectors for each track, the microprogram loader in the control storage ROM 21 has different specifications depending on the type of the magnetic disk device 5. There is no need to be aware of, it becomes very simple, and it can be configured with a few steps.

In the fifth step 205 and the sixth step 206, the bootstrap program is read and then started, and the IPL
Is complete.

In the above-mentioned embodiment, 21 is a ROM, but the present invention is not limited to this.

〔The invention's effect〕

According to the present invention, the microprogram can be loaded into the control memory by using only the microprogram in the ROM, which is in the control memory having a relatively small capacity, without using a dedicated external memory device for storing the microprogram or a service processor. It becomes possible and an inexpensive computer system can be provided.

In addition, since a micro program file can be created as one arbitrary file in the magnetic disk device that stores the system program, the allocation in the magnetic disk is not affected by specific computer hardware, and it has been made into a series. It has an advantage that migration is not interrupted in a plurality of computers.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing file allocation in the external storage device of FIG. 1, and FIG.
FIG. 4 is a diagram showing information stored in the system fixed area of FIG. 2, FIG. 4 is a flow chart showing a storing procedure of a micro program file, FIG. 5 is a flow chart showing a procedure of loading a micro program, and FIG. FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing a conventional example. 2 ... Control storage device, 3 ... Main central processing unit, 4 ... Main storage device, 5 ... External storage device (magnetic disk device), 6 ... Floppy disk device.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A control storage device comprises a first part and a second part, and a microprogram of the first part
A microprogram-controlled data processing system having a function of controlling data transfer from an external storage device to a main storage device and a function of controlling data transfer from the main storage device to a second portion of the control storage device. The microprogram stored in the second part of the device is stored as one file in the external storage device, and the storage address of the file is stored in a fixed address in the external storage device. Micro program storage method.