JPS6149255A - Initial program loading system of terminal equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To load surely an initial program by writing discriminating information corresponding to a program or data to an external memory and at the same time the discriminating information corresponding to a system program on a main memory respectively. CONSTITUTION:The discriminating information corresponding to a program or data is written on a specific area of external memories 2-4 respectively. While the discriminating information 9 corresponding to a system program is written on a main memory 1. A processor 7 gives accesses to memories 2-4 in the prescribed order and loads the contents of said specific area to the memory 1. Then the processor 7 executes the loaded program when coincidence is obtained between the discriminating information written previously and the discriminating information loaded newly.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Technical Field of the Invention] This invention relates to initial program loading (
Z niti a l P r O g r a m
This relates to the LOading (hereinafter abbreviated as PL) method.

[Prior art]

As shown in FIG. 5, a typical terminal device has a main memory (1) into which a system program (6) is loaded, and a floppy disk memory (floppy disk memory) in which the system program is stored.
external memory (2) to (4) consisting of
Select any of these external memories to
It includes a PL selection switch (5), a processing unit (γ) including a central processing unit (CPU) that controls the entire terminal device, and a switch (8) for turning on the power or resetting the system. The system program (6) loaded into the main memory (1) includes an operating system (O8\drivers) and various utilities.

In FIG. 5, the operator selects the IPL selection switch (5).
) Select any of the external memories (2) to (4) to be IPLed in advance from K, and then turn on the power of the terminal device or perform an equivalent operation to store it in a specific area of the selected external memory. system program (6
) is loaded into the main memory (1) and the processing unit (7)
This program is executed by:

In this case, the ones that can be programmed are external memories (2) to (4).
), and if the operator does not know in advance that there is an external memory that can be IPLed, the IPL
It turns out you can't do it.

On the other hand, since the processing unit (γ) unconditionally executes the program loaded in the main memory (1), if the operator accidentally selects an external memory in which no system program is stored, The program is loaded into the main memory (1) and executed as is, which may cause an unexpected failure.

[Summary of the Invention] The present invention was made for the purpose of eliminating the drawbacks of the conventional system as described above.Instead of the operator selecting an external memory, the present invention allows the operator to select multiple types of external memory in a predetermined order. accesses the system program stored in any of these external memories and loads it into the main memory, thereby ensuring a reliable IPL even if the operator does not know which external memory is to be IPLed. This paper proposes an engineering PL system for terminal equipment that can obtain the desired results and suppress the occurrence of unexpected failures.

[Embodiments of the invention]

FIG. 1 shows an example of the configuration of an apparatus for implementing the present invention, and the same reference numerals as in FIG. 5 indicate the same elements. Then, the IPL selection switch (5) in Fig. 5'
ft is removed and the processing device (A) stores external memories (2) to (4).
) can be directly accessed, and identification information (0) corresponding to the system program to distinguish the system program from other data or programs.
Also, when floppy disk memory is used as external memory (2) to (4), conventionally, programs or data can only be stored in a specific area, such as track ○. However, here, identification information corresponding to programs or data is stored at the beginning of each specific area.

Figure 2 shows the system program stored in the external memory (2).The system program (11) is stored in the 0 track as a specific area, and the identification information ((2) ) are stored.

Moreover, FIG. 3 shows the state of the main memory (1) in which identification information (9) is written in advance, and this identification information (9) and the identification information (2) stored in the external memory (2) are shown. are the same, and the identification information stored in other external memories (S) and (4) is different from this identification information (9).

The operation of the apparatus configured as described above will be described below with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 4 showing the specific processing procedure of the processing apparatus (7).

First, the order in which external memories (2) to (4) are accessed for IPL is predetermined, and when the terminal device is powered on (step 20) or the reset switch is pressed (
When step 21) is performed, the processing device (a) transfers the data stored in the specific area of the external memory (2) to the main memory (
1) is loaded (step 22), and then the identification information written in the specific area (old and main memory (1)
) is compared to determine whether or not the identification information (9) written in the file matches the identification information (9) (step 28).

As a result of the above comparison and judgment, if the two pieces of identification information do not match, the system program is searched for by following the same procedure for the external memories (8) and (4) in a predetermined order (steps 24 to 27), If the system program is not stored in the memory either, error handling is executed and the process ends (step 29).

Note that error handling in this case is, for example, a cathode ray tube (
This refers to displaying a message on the CRT screen indicating that IPL is not possible to prompt the operator.

Thus, when multiple types of external memories are connected to the processing unit and a system program is stored in any of these external memories, this system program is automatically searched out and stored in the main memory without operator selection. nl and executed.

Note that although the above embodiment describes a terminal device to which only three types of external memories are connected, even if more IPL-enabled external memories are connected, or even if devices other than external memories are connected, the above-mentioned results will still apply. It goes without saying that similar processing can be performed. [Effects of the Invention] As is clear from the above explanation, the present invention writes identification information corresponding to a program or data in a specific area of an external memory, and also writes a system program in the main memory. Write all the identification information corresponding to the external memory l/'? in a predetermined order. External memory to be accessed and loaded with the contents of a specific area into the main memory, and to execute the loaded program when the previously written identification information and the newly loaded identification information match. Even if the operator does not know the PLi, the operation can be performed reliably, and this has the effect of completely preventing unexpected failures that may occur when other programs or data are mistakenly loaded into the main memory.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of the configuration of an apparatus for carrying out the present invention, FIGS. 2 and 3 are explanatory diagrams for explaining the contents of the elements constituting this apparatus, and FIG. FIG. 5 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the device, and is a block diagram showing an example of the configuration of the device adopting the conventional method. (1) Main memory (2) to (4) External memory (5) IPL selection switch (6), (11) System program (7) Processing device (8) Switch (9), ((to)...
Identification information Note that the same reference numerals in each figure indicate the same or monk parts.

Claims (1)

[Claims] multiple types of external memory including one in which system programs are stored, a main memory into which the contents of this external memory are loaded, and loading into this main memory;
In a terminal device equipped with a processing device that executes a loaded program, identification information corresponding to the program or data is written in a specific area of the external memory where the program or data is written, and a system program is written in the main memory. Writing corresponding identification information, the processing device accesses the external memory in a predetermined order and loads the contents of the specific area into the main memory, and combines the previously written identification information with the newly loaded identification information. An initial program loading method for a terminal device characterized in that the process is repeated until the two pieces of identification information match, and when the two pieces of identification information match, the loaded program is executed.