Ivan, 
 Use the 25 pin serial port 9600 baud 8n1 no hardware flow control. 
 I'm compiling a kernel as I type to play with the smart frame buffer and
keyboard and see if it crashes. 
Terry


catfish: icq #20116127


On Sat, 4 Nov 2000, Ivan Fetch wrote:

> Hi,
>    I do not know how much help I'll be, but I wanted to chime in here as
> well with my recent `findings' on the same machine.  i was trying to
> install NetBSD 1.4.2 on a Dec 3000/m400 -- I burnt the image from
> alpha/installation/diskimages onto a CD, and put the binary distribution
> onto another CD (ISO9660 filesystem).  When booting the first CD, all goes
> well until we switch to serial console mode.  Looking around on the net we
> discovered that the keyboard is not supported with NetBSD and this
> specific machine, so you must use a serial console.  It SEEMS (someone
> please correct me here because I want this to be inaccurate <grin>) that
> the only way to connect a serial console to the Alpha and have it work is
> to use some kind of `line chord' connected between the terminal (in this
> case another PC running terminal software) and the MMJ connecter (where
> the keyboard/mouse combo-cable plugs in).  There is a 25 pin serial port
> on the back of the Alpha as well (this is tty00 under True'64 Unix) - It
> is not possible to use this port as my serial console???  Further more, it
> was mentioned (somewhere) that the serial code was buggy enough that
> running this machine with a serial console would not be so enjoyable.
> 
> I look forward to some feedback,
> Thanks a lot!
> 
> Ivan.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Sat, 4 Nov 2000, George A. Dowding wrote:
> 
> > This is my first post.
> > 
> > I am trying to install NetBSD onto a a DEC 3000 M400.  I was unable to
> > get the Netbsd disk to boot.  Also I was unable to upgrade the
> > firmware using the "Digital Alpha Systems Firmware update v5.3" CD.
> > 
> > Here is the output of >>show config
> > 
> > Digital Equipment corporation
> > 	VPP PAL X5.41-82000101/OSF PAL X1.28000201 - Built on
> > 30-APR-1993 13:51:49.50
> > 
> > TCINFO	    DEVNAM	DEVSTAT
> > ------	    ------	-------
> > 	       CPU		ok kn15-ba -v2.4-s465-I077-sV1.0 DECchip P3.0
> > .
> > .
> > .
> > 
> > Can someone confirm or deny that NetBSD will work on this machine?
> > More information will be provided upon request.
> > 
> > -- 
> > Thanks,
> > George
> > 
> > dowdingg@math.uaa.alaska.edu 
> > http://www.math.uaa.alaska.edu/~dowdingg
> > 
> > 
>