Installing the SDS "68K" and "PowerPC" Version 6.5 starter-kit software |
Before proceeding, you should acquire the following SDS diskettes from the Software Development Systems web site.
By kind permission of SDS we are maintaining a mirror site for the starter kits. However, for the most up-to-date versions of the software, users should directly access the Software Development Systems web site.
NOTE TO INSTRUCTORS. The starter kit files are large and would take a long time for the average student to download to a home system over a 14K or 28K modem. Use the approach suggested on an earlier page.
You will need unzipped versions of the following SDS starter diskettes,
The SDS kit includes assembler, linker, simulator and a number of other software tool. There are number of approaches getting the students with the capabilities and limitations of using the SDS starter kits.
The first approach is to pop up the following windows as required
The second approach is to use only two windows
Both approaches have their advantages. The first approach means that (through the DOS window commands) students will become more familiar with the various stages of code development as they work with specific tools. The second approach might be considered "more intuitive" in this age where students are becoming increasingly more familiar with Graphic User Interfaces (GUI). Both approaches require that certain files be "correctly configured" for the tools to work.
I would suggest that the first approach be adopted with Laboratory 1 and the second approach used with the other Laboratories and tasks. This overcomes a problem in that the 68K and PowerPC SDS tools sets are different and don't have the same capability. A student more familiar with the underlying tools associated with the toolset will have the experience to work out the various limitations.
However, the choice of the approach is the instructor's. I have written the descriptions of the Laboratories so that they can be performed either way.
To allow use of the SDS 68K and PowerPC toolsets it is necessary to make some minor changes to your C:\config.sys and C:\autoexec.bat files.
Changes to your "config.sys" file
Changes to your "autoexec.bat" file
Reboot your system to activate these changes.
You should have a new program group with the SDS help files and simulator icons on your workspace window.
The easiest way to check whether the SDS 68K software will run is to issue the following commands from the DOS command line whilst in directory C:\
This will produce the help pages for the SDS 68K C++ compiler, assembler and linker. Check your path settings if you don't get the help information.
The recommended approach to check installation of the Diab Data PowerPC software is to issue the command
which produces several short lines giving information about the following executable files:-
You should also issue the command SET to check the actual environment variable INC, LINKER and DIABLIB.
IT IS VERY IMPORTANT that before INSTALLING or RUNNING the SDS starter-kit software in a Windows 3.1.1 environment that the operating system be set into 16-bit file access mode. This is one of the very few problems with this otherwise excellent teaching tool. A new software release should fix this problem.
Not using the 16-bit file access mode means that the software will not work properly and can cause some very strange side effects. See your user manual for details on setting 16-bit file access mode on your system.
I found no equivalent problem when installing on a WINDOWS-95 system.
I have found a problem with one specific video driver. The SDS 68K simulator would run but hang the PC on exit. This proved to be something associated with the video driver not being able to activate the command.com executable. If you find this on an equivalent problem, contact the video manufacturer for the latest video driver for your card. That was all it took to solve our problem!
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Last modified: July 25, 1996 06:02 AM by M. Smith.
copyright -- M. R. Smith