MCP Documentation

Switching MCP Versions: How to switch MCP versions.
A (very) concise listing of all MCP commands: Basically just a listing. A more complete manual will be available one day.
MCP Fiducials Commands: The commands to set and manipulate the fiducials; also described the mcpFiducials.-mjd.dat logfile.
TCC STATUS bits: The significance of the bits returned to the TCC's STATUS command
The MCP's Semaphores: Where and when the MCP uses semaphores

The TCC axis controller commands are here; the TCC manual is here.

Switching MCP Versions

To switch the MCP to run version vx_x_x, at the unix prompt on sdsshost say:

   setup mcp vx_x_x
   switchMCP

then reboot the crate; one convenient way to do this is to start iop and say

   mcpCrateReset;

another is to use ^X (control-X) from the mcpMenu. From within iop, the command mcpVersion will tell you the name of the version currently running, the command showMCP (from iop or the unix prompt) shows which version will run upon reboot.

How does this work?

The vxWorks VME crate doesn't know much about sdsshost; all it knows is that if you tell it to reboot, it'll read the file /p/mcpbase/etc/mcp.login and follow instructions. The switchMCP command doesn't attempt to change this behaviour, rather it changes the files in the /p/mcpbase directory.

More specifically, when you say switchMCP:

All the files under /p/mcpbase are deleted
New symbolic links are made from files and directories in the directory specified by the environment variable MCP_DIR to /p/mcpbase (MCP_DIR was set when you said setup mcp vx_x_x). These links specify:
- mcp.login The startup script mentioned above
- the object files that make up the MCP
- tables that give the correct values for all the fiducials
- this documentation
switchMCP also reads the newly installed mcp.login and checks that the correct IP numbers are used for computers such as sdsshost.apo.nmsu.edu tcc25m.apo.nmsu.edu; our release of vxWorks doesn't know how to use DNS to find these for itself.