Operating instructions

SEA M300USERSGUIDE
GENERALINFORMATION  46
The best way to test a serial port is to do this with the ‘sertest’ utility. Please see the ‘sertest’ utility in
the SEA Utilities User’s Guide for more information.
All serial ports must be tested to make sure they are working and communicating properly. For
simple testing the user can use ‘serread’ to see data on a particular port. To transmit test data on a
serial port use the ‘simser’ utility.
SENDINGASCIIDATAOUTTHROUGHTHESERIALORPARALLELPORT
In the same way that the system can create ASCII output files using the ASCII File Output (asc.300,
*.asc), it can also output to the serial or parallel ports. The only difference in this case would be that
the user would have to specify the port name as opposed to a data file name. For example, to output
to the serial port use /dev/ser2 or to the parallel port use /dev/par1.
RUNNINGINTHEBACKGROUND
One of the features of QNX is the ability to execute a command/application in the background from
a shell in Photon. Do the following to run in the background.
1. In a QNX shell, type executable &, where ‘executable’ is the command/application to be run.
For example, to run RawView from a pterm window (shell), type Rawview &
SOFTWAREUPGRADES
SEA can send out software upgrades to a client via e-mail, ftp or the web site when necessary
assuming the client has a valid technical support plan for the M300 system. Here are some points to
remember about the software updates:
• When the user gets the software upgrade there are a number of basic steps to get the software installed.
• Before you start, backup the ‘/sea/bin’ directory so that you can always go to the previous version if desired.
• Usually the file you get is compressed. So the first step should be to un-compress the file.
• The file may have been created with the ‘tar’ utility. If so, you should use the ‘tar’ utility to extract the files
out.
• Finally, the software files should be copied to the ‘/sea/bin’ directory. This directory has all the SEA software
files and it has been added to the PATH. In this was any executable in the ‘/sea/bin’ directory can be
executed from anywhere.
• We have created the SoftTool utility to simplify the software updates. Please check the documentation for
the SoftTool utility in the Utilities User’s Guide.
Note: Afterthis,itisrecommendedthatyourunthesoftwareand checktheversionfromtheabou tdialog
inthehelpmenuoftheM300software.Makesureyouhavethenewversionasopposedtoyouroldone.