JPH0115098B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (A) Technical Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a downloading control system, particularly a control program or character generating data (CG )
The present invention relates to a downloading control system in which a workstation channel collectively manages the files and files in an external storage device and transfers them in response to a request from the workstation.

(B) Prior Art and Problems A workstation is a data input/output device such as a printer, display device, keyboard device, image processing device, etc., and is connected to a host processing device via a workstation channel. Recently, an increasing number of data input/output devices have a built-in microprocessor so that processing specific to the data input/output device can be distributed as much as possible on the data input/output device side.

Traditionally, workstations, which are data input/output devices, have individual control programs and
CG, etc., were stored in read-only memory (ROM), for example. Therefore,
Each workstation may have duplicate information, which not only creates waste, but also makes it difficult to change control programs and the like.

(C) Object and Structure of the Invention The present invention aims to solve the above-mentioned problems, and the workstation channel has a control program, CG,
Alternatively, you can centrally manage dictionaries, etc. in an external storage device such as a magnetic disk device, and, for example, respond to a loading request from a workstation when the power is turned on.
By reading and transferring the necessary loading information, the purpose is to make it possible to share the instructions and data required by each workstation, and to enable flexible management. In particular, it is intended to simplify retransmission processing when an error occurs during downloading, and to provide a means that can easily deal with changes and additions to workstations, control programs, etc.

Therefore, the configuration of the present invention includes an external storage device,
A downloading control method for a system equipped with a plurality of workstations and a workstation channel for controlling the workstations, wherein loading information including a control program corresponding to each workstation is stored in the external storage device. The loading information storage area has a loading information storage area in which each piece of loading information is divided and stored in block units. The workstation is configured to have block number information in which loading information including the control program required by the workstation is stored, and each workstation requests the transfer of the specific block mentioned above at the time of the first downloading request. On the other hand, the workstation channel transfers the content of the specific block, and the workstation that receives the content of the specific block extracts the necessary block number from the content and extracts the block number for each block number. The feature is that a data transfer request is issued. Hereinafter, embodiments will be described with reference to the drawings.

(D) Embodiments of the Invention Fig. 1 is an explanatory diagram of a system configuration to which the present invention is applied, Fig. 2 is an example of the main part configuration of the system illustrated in Fig. 1, and Figs. An explanatory diagram of an embodiment is shown.

In the figure, 1 is a host processing unit, 2 is an external storage device such as a magnetic disk device or floppy disk device, 3 is a workstation channel,
4-1 to 4-3 are work stations, 5 is a loading information storage area, 6 is an identification information determination unit,
Reference numeral 7 represents a loading processing section, 8-1 to 8-3 represent read-only memories (ROM), and 9-1 to 9-3 represent random access memories (RAM).

The host processing unit 1 sequentially fetches and executes instructions, and sends them to the workstations 4-1 to 4-3.
This is a device that inputs and processes data from the workstations 4-1 to 4-3, etc., and outputs the processing results to the workstations 4-1 to 4-3. The external storage device 2 is, for example, a storage device such as a magnetic disk device or a floppy disk device. In particular, the loading information storage area 5 stores control programs and character generators used by the workstations 4-1 to 4-3. Loading information such as rate data (CG) or a dictionary is stored in advance. The control program consists of a group of instructions executed by the microprocessors in the workstations 4-1 to 4-3, and generally differs depending on the device type of the workstations 4-1 to 4-3. CG generates a dot pattern, image, etc. of a character in response to a character code. In many cases, it can be shared by workstations 4-1 to 4-3. The dictionary has information such as kana-kanji conversion when the workstation is a Japanese language processing device, for example. Note that the loading information does not necessarily need to include a dictionary or the like.

The workstation channel 3 controls data input/output to designated workstations 4-1 to 4-3 in response to input/output commands from the host processing device 1. In particular, requests from each of the workstations 4-1 to 4-3 are monitored by constantly polling the workstations 4-1 to 4-3. The identification information determination unit 6 determines what the requested loading information is based on the identification information ID when a downloading request is received from the workstations 4-1 to 4-3. In the present invention, as will be described later, the block number of the block in which the loading information is classified and stored is used as the identification information ID. For example, in the case shown in Figure 1, if the data received at the time of the download request is identification information "B", it is determined that the loading information to be transferred is a control program for workstation 4-2. can. The loading processing unit 7 reads the loading information determined by the identification information determining unit 6 from the external storage device 2 and transfers it to the requested workstation.

Each workstation 4-1 to 4-3 has ROM 8-1 to 8-3 and RAM 9-1 to 9-3 as internal storage, respectively. ROM8-1
~8-3 store the minimum necessary microinstructions for specifying identification information and requesting downloading to the workstation channel 3 when the power is turned on, for example. That is, when power is turned on to workstations 4-1 to 4-3, the normal initial program
Like the loader (IPL), ROM8-1 to 8-3
Execution control is transferred to the instruction at a predetermined address, and a loading request is made to workstation channel 3. Loading information transferred from workstation channel 3 is stored in RAM9-1~
It is stored in 9-3. For example, when a control program is loaded and stored in RAM 9-1 to 9-3, execution control is transferred from the instructions in ROM 8-1 to 8-3 to the instructions of the control program, and from then on the workstation 4-1 to 4-3
becomes serviceable.

FIG. 2 shows the main structure of the embodiment shown in FIG. 1. In Fig. 2, the numbers 2 to 5 are the first
Corresponding to the figure, 5-1 is an identification information section, 5-2 is a loading information section, 8 is a ROM, 9 is a RAM, 10
is a register, 11 is a comparator, 12 is an address register, 13 is a buffer memory, 14 to 16
represents an AND circuit.

The instructions on ROM8 of workstation 4 are:
When making a downloading request to the workstation channel 3, identification information of the requested loading information is set in the register 10. This identification information is for workstation channel 3.
is input to the comparator 11 of. On the other hand, from the loading information storage area 5 of the external storage device 2, the address
According to the contents of the register 12, the identification information section 5-1
The contents of are sequentially read out and input to the comparator 11 via the AND circuit 14. Note that the initial value of the address register 12 is designed to point to the beginning of the loading information storage area 5. The comparator 11 compares the contents of the identification information section 5-1 with
It is determined whether the identification information from the register 10 matches. If they do not match, a signal is output to update the address register 12, and the comparison is repeated in the same manner with the contents of the next identification information section 5-1. If the identification information matches, the contents of the loading information section 5-2 corresponding to the identification information are read out to the buffer memory 13 via the AND circuit 15, and are read out to the buffer memory 13 via the AND circuit 16 to a predetermined location of the workstation 4. Transfer to RAM9. In this way, loading information such as a control program corresponding to the identification information is downloaded.

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to FIGS. 3 to 5. For example, the loading information storage area 5 is divided into blocks of a predetermined size, for example, a plurality of blocks of 256 bytes, and provided in an external storage device. The number of each block may be thought of as indicating the physical or logical location of that block within the external storage device. In the case shown in Figure 3, from block 0 to block
There are up to 19 blocks, the first to fifth blocks are programs for controlling the first workstation, the sixth to eighth blocks are programs for controlling the second workstation, and the ninth to eleventh blocks are programs for controlling the second workstation. Until the third
The workstation control program, the 12th to 16th blocks store CG commonly used in each workstation, and the 17th to 19th blocks store dictionaries. These block information are collectively stored and managed in the 0th block 20 in correspondence with the device type of each workstation. In the 0th block 20 shown in Figure 3, X1 is the first block number of the control program, X2 is the last block number of the control program, Y1 is the first block number of CG, Y2 is the last block number of CG, and Z1 is the dictionary number. The first block number, Z2, indicates the last block number of the dictionary. That is, based on the information in the 0th block, for example, regarding the 1st workstation, the control program is in the 1st to 5th blocks, and the CG is in the 12th to 5th blocks.
16 block, indicating that the dictionary does not require loading.

In response to a download request from a workstation, detailed data 21 as shown in FIG. 4, for example, is created and sent to the workstation channel. A download request is made for each block, and the block number is set in the detailed data 21. For example, the block size is 256
It's a part-time job. Workstation type information is set in the device type column.

Each workstation is configured to request the transfer of block 0 from the workstation channel in the first download request. For example, the first workstation will process as shown in FIG. First, when the power is turned on and the operation starts, "0" is designated as the block number of the detailed data as shown in FIG. 4, and the transfer of the 0th block is requested. The workstation channel refers to the added detailed data, reads out the 0th block in which block management information is stored from the external storage device, and transfers it. 1st
The workstation is controlled by the 0th block.
You can know the necessary control programs and CG storage blocks. Next, these blocks are requested one by one with detailed data 21 added to them. If an error occurs on the way, it is possible to request retransmission of just that block.
In this way, the control program and CG can be loaded into the internal memory, and subsequent processing can be performed based on that information. In particular, in this embodiment, the loading process in the workstation channel can be made common without changing depending on the type of workstation. Further, retry can be performed in block units, and partial changes can also be made by block instructions.

(E) Effects of the Invention As explained above, according to the present invention, a workstation control program,
It becomes possible to store and manage multiple CGs, dictionaries, etc., and it also becomes possible to use CGs, etc. in common by multiple workstations. Therefore, even if the control program etc. needs to be changed or added, it can be easily modified, and flexible management becomes possible. In particular, in the present invention, since loading information is transferred in units of blocks, retransmission processing when an error occurs can be performed simply and quickly. In addition, loading management information for each workstation is stored in specific blocks such as the 0th block, so when it becomes necessary to change or add a control program, etc., it is possible to By simply changing the data structure to be stored, it is possible to easily deal with this problem without changing the program that performs the loading process. In this regard, the loading process can also be made common to each workstation.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram of a system configuration to which the present invention is applied, FIG. 2 is an example of the main configuration of the system illustrated in FIG. 1, and FIGS. 3 to 5 are explanatory diagrams of an embodiment of the present invention. . In the figure, 1 represents a processing device, 2 an external storage device, 3 a workstation channel, 4 a workstation, and 5 a loading information storage area.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A downloading control method in a system including an external storage device, a plurality of workstations, and a workstation channel for controlling the workstations, wherein each workpiece is stored in the external storage device. It has a loading information storage area for storing loading information including a control program compatible with the station, and each loading information is stored in the loading information storage area divided into blocks, and a specific block in the loading information storage area is stored. Each workstation is configured to have block number information in which loading information including control programs required by each workstation is stored, and each workstation receives the first download request. Sometimes, a request is made to transfer the specific block, in response to which the workstation channel transfers the content of the specific block, and the workstation that receives the content of the specific block extracts the required block number from the content. A downloading control method characterized in that a data transfer request is issued for each block of each block number.