Subject: Re: bootrom images?
To: None <port-hp300@netbsd.org>
From: Michael Wolfson <mw@blobulent.com>
List: port-hp300
Date: 05/26/2001 13:56:36
At 3:52 PM -0400 5/26/01, der Mouse wrote:

:)> Did you press the <return> key twice after it recognizes the HIL
:)> interface?  [...] Otherwise, it will try booting from the first
:)> bootable device it encounters.
:)
:)No, I didn't; when I did those tests I had no other possible bootable
:)device connected.  (In particular, no disks.)

Hum.  It should've probed the network then.  Are you sure you've got your
10Base2 network properly terminated?  Also, remember, the rbootd protocol
is kinda weird and may not show up in some modes of tcpdump.  Just try
setting up rbootd and see what happens.

:)A vs B on the video cards seems to be different.  The 98544B has only
:)an RCA jack - no other connectors (specifically, no 9-pin connector and
:)no BNC).  One of the three machines I suspect of being 330s has a
:)98544A, and hooking its BNC connector to my monitor's BNC connector did
:)not produce any usable display (probably due to lack of sync, it seems
:)to me).

Hmmm, you're starting to trigger some fuzzy memories in me.  ISTR that the
98544B card I used also did not have the 9 pin connector -- I've never
heard of it before either.  My 987544B was connected to a 98786A monitor
and worked just fine.  Of course, the 98544B had an RCA connector and the
98786A had a BNC.

:)I have two monitors; the one I'm using is a 98786A, the other is a
:)98774A.  As far as I can tell, neither has anywhere to plug in the
:)"control" circuits from the 98544A.  Another of those fuzzy years-old
:)memories says that at one point I did have my hands on such a monitor.

The manual says that "The 98544A is compatable with the 948781A 17-in monitor."

"The 948781A is a monochromatic (white) monitor for high resolution text
and graphics applications.  It has a built-in speaker, twivel base, and
passive HP-HIL jack.  The 98781A is compatible with the following video
interfaces:
* 98544A high resolution video board (Series 300);
* 09920-66562 raster graphics board (Model 237)."

"Interface: composite video, BNC video, 7-pin 'sync' cable carries sync,
HP-HIL and audio"

For future reference, all the info I've included is from the "HP 9000
Series 300 Configuration Reference Manual" 98561-90020 copyright 1985.

I've never heard of a 948774A.  Have you tried using google to figure out
what it handles?

:)> Delay interrupt		10 ms to 1.94 days
:)> Cyclical interrupt	10 ms to 1.94 days
:)
:)Makes me wonder why they don't just say "2^24 10ms ticks" :-)

Probably because saying you can delay in interrupt by almost two days
sounds cooler?

:)>> - - 98625A (on the panel), 98625-66501 (on the board): HP-IB
:)> 	this is "fast" hpib, use it for your drives
:)
:)That's what I tried, and the 1.2 kernel that I have on the disks hangs.
:)Move them to the "slow" HP-IB and everything works.

Yeah, ISTR that upgrading to 1.2G (?) caused me to be unable to use one of
my disks on the "fast" bus and I had to drop it to the "slow" bus.  I know
the change was after 1.2 was released.  No idea if it's fixed now since I
distributed all of my HPIB-only machines and disks a while ago.  I had no
troubles with the 7937H drives, but the 7963B used to, but then didn't work
on fast HPIB.

:)Yes, the six boards are green-and-violet.  I wondered why the handles
:)were of different colours.
:)
:)The last board, at the top, has red-and-black handles, in case that
:)says anything to anyone.

Got me.  But judjing by your total RAM, it must be 1 MB.

:)> [The 330] can't recognize RAM for the 320, and vice versa.
:)
:):-(  I was hoping to put a 330 cpu in the 320 chassis and get 10MB
:)total, which would have begun to approach enough to be usable. :-)

Sorry.  The manual said something about using >7.5 MB for addressing some
devices on the 320.  I suspect if you somehow got a larger chassis with
more DIO-II slots and some of those 4 MB RAM cards you could bump up your
330s.  I got the impression (possibly wrong) that the 8 MB limit of the 330
was that its chassis only had two DIO-II slots, but I could be wrong.

Then again, at that point it'd be easier to get a whole new system.  I can
tell you, however, that I *did* manage to get X running on my 7.5 MB 320
system.  Dog slow (particularly with the 98720 3D accelerated 24 bpp unit,
which was larger than the 320 itself), but it worked.

:)I think I may have to give up on the 320/330 machines, at least for the
:)time being

:(  Well, if you still have one bootable disk or tape drive, you can run
:the  HP-UKES installer and run "mediainit" to reformat your HPIB drives.
:Then you can re-install NetBSD.

:)and try to bring up my 425e instead.  Doesn't have nearly the hack
:)value, but it has SCSI and hence I can just grab one of my spare disks
:)for it.  (If I had a SCSI interface for the 320/330, I wouldn't be
:)messing around with netbooting; I'd just set up the disk on another
:)machine if need be.)

Well, remember the 425e doesn't have serial console support in its BootROM,
but NetBSD does start using it once you get the bootloader loaded.  And if
your 425e has HPIB, then you could do the same (i.e. boot HPUX, run
mediainit, and install NetBSD onto the HPIB drives).

Of course, if you get the console working on 425e systems, you'd probably
make a lot of people on this list happy.

Have fun,
  -- MW