BASEstar Open DAS for Modicon[R] Programmable Controllers on_Tru64[TM]_UNIX[R]________________________________ Release Notes Operating System and Version: Tru64 UNIX Version 4.0 Software Version: Device Access Software for Modicon Programmable Controllers, Version 3.1A-000 Compaq Computer Corporation Houston, Texas ________________________________________________________________ March 2000 © 1994 Compaq Computer Corporation. COMPAQ, VAX and VMS Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. BASEstar and OpenVMS are trademarks of Compaq Information Technologies Group, L.P. in the United States and/or other countries. UNIX and The Open Group are registered trademarks of The Open Group in the US and/or other countries. Modicon and Modbus are registered trademarks of AEG Schneider Automation, Inc. SQ85, SA85, Modbus Plus and Quantum Automation Series are trademarks of Schneider Automation, Inc. All other products mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Confidential computer software. Valid license from Compaq or authorized sublicensor required for possession, use or copying. Consistent with FAR 12.211 and 12.212, Commercial Computer Software, Computer Software Documentaion, and Technical data for Commercial Items are licensed to the U.S. Government under vendor's standard commercial license. Compaq shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. The information in this document is subject to change without notice. This document was prepared using DECdocument, Version 3.3. _________________________________________________________________ Contents 1 New and Changed Features for V3.1A-000........ 1 1.1 Support for TCP/IP (V3.1-001)............. 1 1.2 Information report support changed to write indications (V3.1-001).............. 1 1.3 SLAVE_PATHS and MASTER_PATHS attributes (V3.1-001)................................ 1 1.4 IND_ROUTE_PATH attribute (V3.1-001)....... 2 1.5 Compaq Trademark and Copyright Notices (V3.1-002)................................ 2 2 Problems Fixed in This Release................ 2 2.1 Reading Data with Hex 'FF' (V3.1-000)..... 2 2.2 Retries Exceeded (V3.1-001)............... 3 3 Known Restrictions............................ 3 3.1 Restriction on Devices on a Line.......... 3 4 Known Problems................................ 3 5 Documentation Errata.......................... 3 iii 1 New and Changed Features for V3.1A-000 The following changes are included in this release: 1.1 Support for TCP/IP (V3.1-001) TCP/IP support has been added to the DAS. The DAS now supports using TCP/IP with the Quantum Ethernet TCP/IP module. An additional class has been added in ODS (MODTCP_ PATH) with attributes IP_ADDRESS, PROBE_TIME, DROP_TIME, TIMEOUT and TRACE. PROBE_TIME and DROP_TIME are new attributes that control how long a connection will be maintained after a device stops communicating. 1.2 Information report support changed to write indications (V3.1-001) Information report indications have now been changed to write indications. This change only affects users of Modbus-Plus using the MSTR function block to send data to the host. This change will require that the user define a local VMD to receive write indication data from the programmable controller. Programmable controller data will no longer be sent to variables defined on the remote VMD. Local VMDS for Modbus-Plus must be configured using the MODPLUS_NODE_PATH object class id ODS. Remote VMDS for Modbus-Plus must be configured using the MODPLUS_SLAVE_PATH object class in ODS. The new TCP/IP support also only supports write indications. 1.3 SLAVE_PATHS and MASTER_PATHS attributes (V3.1-001) The attributes SLAVE_PATHS and MASTER_PATHS have been added to the MODPLUS_LINE object class in ODS. The SLAVE_ PATHS attribute controls the number of slave paths (for receiving write indications) allocated by the DAS. If the programmable controller is not sending data to the host, then this attribute can be set to zero (0) to conserve resources on the host. The MASTER_PATHS attribute controls how many master paths (for requesting data from or writing data to the programmable controller) are allocated by the DAS. By setting this value lower than the maximum value of eight (8), the user can reserve paths for use by other applications or to allow more than one server process to 1 access the same Modbus-Plus card. The value of the MASTER_ PATHS attribute defaults to seven (7) and the value of the SLAVE_PATHS attribute defaults to one (1) if not specified when configuring the line. 1.4 IND_ROUTE_PATH attribute (V3.1-001) The attribute IND_ROUTE_PATH has been added to the MODPLUS_ LINE object class in ODS. This attribute controls what format data is expected to be in when receiving write indications. If the IND_ROUTE_PATH is set (YES, ON, TRUE, 1), then the DAS expects that the first five words of the data contain the routing path of the programmable controller sending the data. The data is then sent to the variable defined for the local VMD associated with the remote VMD that sent the data. If the IND_ROUTE_PATH is not set (NO, OFF, FALSE, 0), then the DAS doesn't expect any routing information in the data and only one local VMD can be configured for all remote VMDs on a line. This restriction implies that all remote VMDs must send to unique addresses on the local VMD in order for the data to be uniquely identified. The default value for IND_ROUTE_PATH is to not be set. 1.5 Compaq Trademark and Copyright Notices (V3.1-002) The DAS has been updated to use Compaq standard trademark and copyright notices. 2 Problems Fixed in This Release The following problems from the previous release were fixed in this release: 2.1 Reading Data with Hex 'FF' (V3.1-000) A problem existed where data coming from a Modbus device with a value of Hex 'FF' would result in an error being returned to the user ("The retry count was exceeded"). This problem has now been fixed. 2 2.2 Retries Exceeded (V3.1-001) The behavior when retries have been exceeded has been changed to abort all connections on a line. Previously an error would be returned to the user but the connection(s) would not be aborted. The previous behavior could cause a broken connection on UNIX systems using a LAT connection to never be reestablished. 3 Known Restrictions The following restrictions exist in this release: 3.1 Restriction on Devices on a Line All devices configured on a particular line must be accessed using a single process. This restriction exists because all devices on a line must share the same physical port. 4 Known Problems There are no known problems as of this release. 5 Documentation Errata There are no documentation corrections at this time. 3