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C
VMICPCI-7611 Product Manual
BIOS Operations
When the VMICPCI-7611 is powered on, control immediately jumps to the BIOS. The
BIOS initiates a Power-on Self-Test (POST) program, which instructs the
microprocessor to initialize system memory as well as the rest of the system. The BIOS
establishes the configuration of all on-board devices by initializing their respective
I/O and Memory addresses and interrupt request lines. The BIOS then builds an
interrupt vector table in main memory, which is used for interrupt handling. The
default interrupt vector table and the default address map are described in Chapter 3
of this manual.
Finally, the BIOS jumps to the hard drive or floppy drive to execute
the operating system’s boot program. This is the point at which a custom operating
system may take control of the board and proceed with a custom configuration
and/or custom application. A user application may override the configuration set by
the BIOS and reconfigure the system or it may accept what the BIOS initialized.
BIOS Control Overview
There are two areas on the VMICPCI-7611 in which the user must be familiar in order
to override the initial BIOS configuration. These include the device addresses and the
device interrupts. This appendix reviews the details of these addresses and interrupts,
and provides a reference list for the individual devices used on the board.
The VMICPCI-7611 utilizes the high-performance Peripheral Component
Interconnect (PCI) bus along with the Industrial Standard Architecture (ISA) bus. In
general, the PCI bus is plug-and-play compatible. The components that are connected
to the PCI bus are not always placed at a standard I/O or Memory address, nor are
they connected to a standard interrupt request line as is the case with ISA bus devices.
These PCI bus devices are re-established by the BIOS, meaning that these devices will
not always be located at the same address or connected to the same interrupt request
line every time the CPU is booted. This appendix lists the defaults that are found by
powering up a specific VMICPCI-7611.
Functional Overview
The block diagram included in Figure C-1 on page 91 illustrates the VMICPCI-7611
emphasizing the I/O features, including the PCI-to-PCI bridge.
The circled number in the corner of a function block references the appropriate data
book necessary for the programming of the function block.
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