Alpha Microprocessors Motherboard Software Design Tools User's Guide

This User's Guide from Compaq Computer Corporation (April 1999) describes a suite of software design tools specifically developed or modified for creating and verifying firmware for Alpha microprocessor motherboards.

Aimed at tool developers and designers, the document details tools compatible with Alpha 21264, 21164PC, and 21164 microprocessors, primarily supporting Tru64 UNIX and Windows NT operating systems.

The toolset covers various stages of firmware development, including:

• Assembly and Linking: Using modified GNU Assembler (GAS) and Hudson Assembler Linker (HAL) with Alpha PALcode extensions.
• Object File Processing: Tools like ALIST, ASTRIP, CLIST, and CSTRIP for generating code listings, extracting, and stripping header information from object files.
• ROM Image Creation and Management: Utilities such as HEX32, HEXPAD, HFCOMP, IC4MAT, MAKEROM, SROM Packer, and SYSGEN for producing Intel Hex and Motorola S-record formatted data, adding padding, compressing images, building ROM images with headers, and managing instruction cache images.
• Validation and Debugging: The PALcode Violation Checker (PVC) is a key tool for identifying instruction sequence violations, and ULOAD/XLOAD facilitate downloading files to the motherboard's debug monitor via serial port for testing.
• Version Control Integration: RCSV helps incorporate RCS version information.

Overall, the guide enables users to develop and verify PALcode and generate the necessary data for programming SROMs.