Maintenance panel for communicating with an automated maintenance system

Abstract

Apparatus for entering encoded data, command, and address information via a keyboard for transfer to an automated maintenance system designed to perform certain tests on or cause selected events in a unit of a data processing system such as the central processing unit. The data, command and address information entered via the keyboard by an operator serves to control the tests performed by or the events caused by the automated maintenance system. The maintenance panel also includes a plurality of display devices for displaying the data, command and address information sent to the automated maintenance system as well as data received by the automated maintenance system from the unit under test indicating the correctness of its performance. In the preferred embodiment, several LED indicators are also used for prompting and status indication. Some of these LED's light under the control of the automated maintenance system to provide prompting to the operator to cause him to enter information necessary for completion of a particular command he has entered via the keyboard. Such additional information depends upon the command entered and might include the data he desires to write to a particular register or memory location or the address of a particular memory location he wishes to read. The other LED's indicate the status of the system such as whether an operation is complete or whether the remote terminal port has been enabled. In the preferred embodiment, a hexadecimal encoded keyboard is used for entering data, addresses and commands, while eight function keys serve to control various operations by the automated maintenance system.