20 Apr
2009
20 Apr
'09
3:41 p.m.
It's good to be back. I had to unsub because I changed jobs and lost my
old email address, evidently just as subscriptions went AWOL.
Preface: This is for a commercial environment, and work will be more than
pleased to pay for anything we can use.
The short version is that I need to support the HP/Agilent SmarTest
suite on HP-UX 11.0 or later or Linux, controlling an HP83000 test frame.
That requires a driver for the PCI optical interface to the 83000
mainframe. The card is marked E2777B, p/n A3850-0583 (SmarTest will not
run if the interface is not detected). As far as I've been able to
determine, there's no publicly released driver for any OS but 10.20, nor
documentation for the interface card sufficient to write a driver
in-house. The only drivers we've found come with the SmarTest suite.
The problem is that SmarTest for the HP83k is only known to run in
HP-UX 10.20, and 10.20 does not run at all on the PA-8700 CPUs in the
j6700. There are patches to enable PA-8700, but they can be applied
only to HP-UX 10.26 ("trusted" HPUX) and 10.30 (which HP apparently
distributed for a VERY brief time).
Our preferred solution would be to run SmarTest on HPUX 11i (or Linux
or anything that will run on a machine faster than a C3600).
One of our engineers is convinced that there was, probably internal
to Agilent, a version of SmarTest that supported HP-UX 11.0 and the
HP83K. However, Agilent has sold all that to another company which
would basically like to forget that the HP83000 ever existed.
Finally, although the HP83000 API is well-documented and there is
software to replace SmarTest, this company has a huge investment in
SmarTest test programs and would like to avoid porting them. Same goes
for moving to HP93000 test frames or later, with the addition expense of
the hardware.
So. I'm looking for, in order of preference:
A Linux version of SmarTest (which exists) *with* kernel drivers for
the E2777B interface card (which Verigy denies exists).
A 64-bit HP-UX 11/11i driver for that card. Extra points if it's ia64.
Someone who has the resources and immediate time to develop one of
the above, or to design a "shim" such that SmarTest running on Linux
connects to the C3600 with the optical interface but thinks it's talking
to the card.
A copy of HP-UX 10.30 or 10.26 for s700. Actually, I think 10.26 was
available only for s800.
Again, we're not looking to bypass or violate any licensing or
copyright. We just can't locate even anyone who will discuss this.
Doc Shipley