HP/Agilent 16702A firmware - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: JimDrew
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 11:12:07 am
content: So, I have seen boot screens for various 16702A systems with different firmware versions - 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, and 2.1. From what I can tell, this is the boot ROM firmware version. Does anyone know what the last official version of the firmware was, and what type of ROM(s) are used?

author: gslick
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 04:30:23 pm
content: As far as I can tell the 16700 series CPU board firmware is contained in two 29F040 512K x 8 flash parts in 32-pin PLCC packages.Looking at photos of 16700A and a 16700B CPU boards that I have the flash parts on those particular two CPU boards have these labels:U12 E4406-80003 REV 1.0U25 E4406-80004 REV 1.0U12 E4406-80036 VER 3.2U25 E4406-80037 VER 3.2As the part numbers suggest, the 16700 series CPU boards apparently were originally used in the E4406A VSA Transmitter Tester. The CPU boards aren't exactly the same. For example while they both have 9914 GPIB controller chips on board the GPIB connector is only populated on the E4406A board and not populated on the 16700 series CPU boards.

author: JimDrew
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 08:47:58 pm
content: Does anyone know if there is a way to re-flash the firmware with the latest version and how that is done?

author: gslick
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2021, 10:45:31 pm
content: I don't recall ever seeing a discussion anywhere about updating the CPU board firmware for an HP / Agilent 16700 series logic analyzer, or discussions about possible firmware bugs and fixes, or changes or improvements in newer firmware versions. Lots of discussions about reinstalling HP-UX and the associated logic analyzer application software, but nothing about the firmware.Maybe some of the CPU board firmware changes were due to hardware changes, for example the system memory of the CPU board was increased from 32MB on the 16700A/16702A to 128MB on the 16700B/16702B, and the 10BT Ethernet on the 16700A/16702A CPU board was replaced on the 16700B/16702B by a 100BT daughter board.Is there any particular reason you think you need to update the CPU board firmware, or is it more of a "just because" question?There were tools to update the firmware flash for other PA-RISC based systems. For example the HP 712/60 workstation used as the HP 16505A could update the firmware by booting an update program from a SCSI tape drive. There was a PF_C7120023 patch file download for that which was a text file containing a script and a uuencoded binary, which created the binary update file when executed. Then that binary update file had to be manually dd'd to a SCSI tape drive, and then the system rebooted from that tape.There might be similar tools for updating the 16700 series CPU board firmware which HP / Agilent used internally, but never saw a need to release publicly.I don't know if anyone has bothered to dump the 16700 series CPU board firmware flash parts into image files for the various versions. If the PLCC parts were in sockets I could do that for the versions I have by removing the parts from the sockets. Or if I had a 32-pin PLCC test clip maybe the contents could be captured from a running system if the firmware runs a checksum test loop on itself on power on.

author: JimDrew
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 05:04:07 am
content: I was just curious because I have seen machines with v1.0, v1.1, v2.0, and v2.1 firmware message on the boot screen of a 16702A machine. I was wondering what the differences in the firmware were, and what the latest release version was. I just got a used 16702A (via eBay), but there was no picture of it booting so I have no idea what might arrive. Just trying to prepare myself for things. I already ordered new (quiet) fans, pods, SCSI CD-ROM drive, and a few other things.Clearly, it's not a big deal or there would have been a lot of discussion about this.

author: gslick
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 05:42:27 am
content: Maybe someone else will come along later that has more information they can share about the 16700 series CPU board firmware versions.I'll have to look through the systems I have to see what versions I have. I have at least systems with versions 1.0 and 3.2, probably some systems with other versions as well.The images below are from a 16700A 16700-69514 CPU board with firmware version 3.2.

author: tv84
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 10:55:51 am
content: Is this worth anything?HP/Agilent 16700 Software CD B3760-14243 A.02.90.00

author: tv84
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 03:24:31 pm
content: BTW, this data allows the regeneration of the license.dat file, if anything goes wrong.

author: gslick
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 04:25:29 pm
content: Quote from: tv84 on May 30, 2021, 03:24:31 pmIn the case of the 16700 series analyzers the standard software installation includes the lmcrypt tool that will regenerate the correct signatures for the features present in the license file. The only trick is that the executable file is not named lmcrypt or anything else obvious. 16700 series analyzers licensing hasn't been an issue for a while.Two of the interesting script files on the 16700 series installation CD are:LA_CDROM/catalog/HP1660X-70XA/pfiles/postinstallLA_CDROM/HP1660X-70XA/HP1660X-70XA/usr/sprockets/os/sbin/convertLicensing(On the CD the convertLicensing script is compressed. You can use gzip -d to decompress it).The postinstall script calls the convertLicensing script, which runs the lmcrypt executable on the license.dat file, which will regenerate the signatures for every feature line in the license file.from postinstall script:Code:## Convert licensing files to new format#/usr/sprockets/os/sbin/convertLicensing## Now, delete the file so we don't leave evidence of what we did. :)#rm -f /usr/sprockets/os/sbin/convertLicensingfrom convertLicensing script:Code:## GLOBAL CONSTANTSmy $LICENSE_FILE = '/hplogic/licensing/license.dat';my $LMCRYPT = '/usr/sprockets/flexlm/introScreen';# run lmcrypt on itsystem "$LMCRYPT -maxlen -1 -verfmt 6 $LICENSE_FILE";

author: gslick
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2021, 10:51:47 pm
content: Quote from: tv84 on May 30, 2021, 10:55:51 amIf you boot the 16700 series logic analyzer from the installation CD it will "re-ignite" the SCSI boot hard drive, wiping and reinitializing it and then installing HP-UX and the logic analyzer application from scratch. That can be used to recover from a corrupted hard drive, or if a failed or missing hard drive is replaced.While the 16900 series logic analyzer application installation process does a version check on the 16900 series mainframe FPGAs and updates them if necessary, as far as I know there is nothing similar in the 16700 series installation process that would update the mainframe firmware, and no firmware files that could be used to manually update the mainframe firmware.The only 16700 series firmware I have ever noticed is used to update the emulation modules with target processor specific firmware when switching the emulation modules from one processor target to another.

author: JimDrew
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2021, 01:05:09 am
content: Thanks for the info. I guess I won't worry about the firmware as long as all of the modules work.I do have the .iso image of the 2.90 software.