Ampro Corporation LITTLE BOARD P5X - Manual (Page 37)

Little Board/P5x Technical Manual
2–19
Ampro Custom Serial Features
The Ampro extended BIOS provides custom serial port features useful in embedded applications.
! The serial console feature enables you to operate the Little Board/P5x from a standard ASCII
terminal, replacing the standard keyboard and display devices. See Serial Console Features,
below, for a description of the serial console capabilities.
! The serial boot facility enables the Little Board/P5x to boot from code downloaded through a
serial port in a manner similar to booting from a local hard disk or from a network.
! The serial download feature permits updating the OEM Flash memory device over a serial port.
Refer to Ampro Application Note AAN-9403 for a complete description of these features. Refer to
the Ampro Common Utilities manual for descriptions of SERLOAD and SERPROG, utility programs
used to support serial booting and serial downloading.
Serial Console Features
You can connect a device, such as an ASCII video terminal or PC running a video terminal
emulation program, to either serial port to act as your system console.
To use the serial console features, connect a serial console device to Serial 1 or Serial 2. Use Setup
to enable the serial console feature.
When enabled, the serial console is set up for:
! 9600 baud
! No parity
! 8 bits
! One stop bit
To use an ASCII terminal as the console device for your system, set the serial baud rate, parity,
data length, and stop bits of the terminal to match the serial console settings.
For proper display of Setup and POST messages from the BIOS, you must use an IEEE-compatible
terminal or terminal emulation program that implements the standard ASCII cursor commands.
The required commands and their hexadecimal codes are listed in Table 2– 16.
Table 2– 16. Required Cursor Commands
Hex Command
08 Backspace
0A Line Feed
0B Vertical Tab
0C Non-destructive Space
0D Carriage Return