开云体育

Hi Yves,?

Hi All,

Below is a small update on the topic.? I am trying to keep it short, since from the beginning this topic was not related to HPAK instruments.

It took some time, and I am still not completely satisfied about the result I got. My goal was to be able to configure an 8310 (which came with an attenuator for 0.8 - 2.5 GHz, 0-63.25 dB attenuation range) with two of the 18 GHz attenuators (151T-110 and 151T-11). I was able to configure this in the end, but NOT STARTING with a blank EEPROM (as it happened to have, after I erased the EEPROM content of my unit).

During my tests, I found a "maintenance mode", and made a simple application tool as a helper (it is more or less a COM port terminal with some additional functionality). I was able to upload the firmware and the EEPROM content of the 8310/8210 to the PC. The download also works for the firmware, but unfortunately not for the EEPROM (despite it reports that the download was successful and the EEPROM was written, actually the EEPROM is not written). So if someone erases the 8210/8310 EEPROM with the ERASE EEPROM or ERASE SYSTEM commands, the recovery is possible only if the EEPROM is written with a programmer device (the other sections of the EEPROM can be configured using the known/found commands). I bet that some other commands exist to make the complete EEPROM configuration over GPIB (or serial), but I have not figured these out.

I extracted the strings from the application code (it would be much better to disassembly the code, but I don't have the necessary skills to do this. So this was a simple brute force method). Testing the possible commands, I found some which are not documented. But there are for sure others, which I have not found. I made also an EEPROM layout, using the different known or found configuration commands. I always started with the EPROM copy from Yves, which is for FW version 2.72. The EEPROM layout has been changed over different firmware versions, and the newer firmware needs some reconfiguration (this was the reason why the EEPROM from Yves was not working from the start with my firmware version). But the configuration of the system itself, which allows using the display and the front panel, remains the same, and is situated in the 18 bytes of the EEPROM (between 0x0240 - 0x0251. The first 2 bytes are some kind of CRC, but definitely not CRC-16, and the following 16 bytes are the configuration). This is the section which I cannot configure using the known/found commands. Most of the other sections (DEVICE, ATTENUATOR, SWITCH, GROUP, CHANNEL, and MACRO) uses the first two bytes of the section for a standard CRC-16 (calculated over the payload of the section). There are also two other oddball sections (CONFIG and IDN), which does not have a regular CRC-16 as their first two bytes.

I received last week an 8210 control unit (inside any 8310 there is always a 8210 and some attenuators), with firmware 2.98, but the EEPROM inside was not configured for Display use (the manuals says that by default the DISPLAY is enabled, but it is not true). I could extract the application firmware, and tried the update on my 8310 unit (originally with FW 2.92). The update worked. The application code is 7 x 64k, but only the first 4 x 64k contains code, the rest if empty (0xFF). The attached screen captures are from the helper tool.

So far, the GPIB control, front panel keys and display is working as it should with the new (110 + 11 = 121 dB) 18 GHz attenuator pair, I am just disappointed that I could not configure all starting with a blank EEPROM.

If there is someone who is interested in more details, I will share gladly all what I figured out. Maybe with help/contribution from others, the missing configuration commands will be found.

Since the end of the year is very close, and probably this is my last post in 2023, I wish to all the group members a Happy New year, and first of all, good health for 2024!

Gyorgy/George

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