Here is my experience with my 3000/300LX.

1. If the keyboard and mouse are plugged in it will boot automatically from
the hard disk on powerup.

2. If the keyboard and mouse are not plugged in it will wait with the SRM
prompt on a terminal attached to the serial port. You can then use a
terminal
attached to the serial port to install NetBSD, etc. I could not
get a powerup hard disk boot with the keyboard and mouse unplugged. It
always
stopped at the SRM prompt on the serial port (even with the terminal
unplugged from the serial port).

3. After installing, you can remove the terminal from the serial port,
attach
the keyboard and mouse, and then it will boot netBSD on powerup.

I hope this helps.

Jim

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Sheila&bob [SMTP:shsrms@erols.com]
> Sent:	Sunday, July 11, 1999 6:35 AM
> To:	Chris G. Demetriou
> Cc:	kyrrin@bluefeathertech.com; port-alpha@netbsd.org
> Subject:	My second alpha and Re: My first Alpha: What've I got?
> 
> I got rather luck too, on Friday I picked up a little 3000/300 with full
> up mem slots. 
> I also picked up a scsi expansion box, with a reasonabe RZ in it.
> Looking thru the archives, I see a ref to running the box without a
> video head, by looping keyboard and mouse pins.  I haven't found those
> pins yet tho.  It joins my little Multia and my vaxen collection running
> 1.4 as soon as ....
> 
> Is there a pointer?  A Faq on the beast? 
> Thanks!!
> bob
> 
> 
> 
> Chris G. Demetriou wrote:
> > 
> > kyrrin@bluefeathertech.com writes:
> > >       I just got my first ever Alpha system. It's a DEC 3000/600, and
> > > it looks like it's pretty well loaded. It has the PMAG-C frame buffer,
> > > an RZ26, and four of those 100-pin SIMMs (I have no clue how
> > > much actual memory this is).
> > >
> > > [ ... ]
> > >
> > >       Soooooo.... what, exactly, have I got, and will the Alpha port
> of
> > > NetBSD run with it?
> > 
> > You have a "Sandpiper+".  I don't recall whether that has a 21064 or
> > 21064A CPU, but it'll have one of them.
> > 
> > NetBSD/alpha was initially ported to that exact type of machine.
> > 
> > AFAIK, you'll need to use a serial console on it in order to make it
> > go, but other than that it should work great.
> > 
> > That hardware was a real workhorse.  Certainly, by today's standards
> > it's not particularly fast, but back in 1993-1994 it was nice.  Those
> > boxes have better memory bandwidth than most of the 21064{,A}-based
> > PCI workstations, too.
> > 
> > cgd
> > --
> > Chris Demetriou - cgd@netbsd.org -
> http://www.netbsd.org/People/Pages/cgd.html
> > Disclaimer: Not speaking for NetBSD, just expressing my own opinion.