> Interesting...  I've never tried with a video card in the machine..  Perhaps 
> if you take the video card out.. it will work better?  

Nothing happens when I try to boot without the video card in.

> You can also set up AIX  to allow logins on the serial tty, to make sure it
> works.. if you want to test your cable out.

I know the cable works.  I've used it on other machines before.

> Generally.. from the firmware.. you should be able to set the boot order, in
> that menu, there is a "boot from specific device" entry, where you
> can tell it to boot directly off the floppy.  If you can't get the
> com0 one working, perhaps the non com0 one would boot up.. but
> chances are all the interesting stuff will scroll off. 

My boot order is set to floppy first, CD-ROM second, and then the
hard-drive.  When I put either floppy image (boot_com0-GENERIC.fs or
netbsd.GENERIC.gz) in, the machine tries to boot from it but then just
stops reading from the floppy and then just sits there.

> > % lspci -vvv -x -b -i pci.ids
> > 00:0b.0 Class 0000: 8086:0484 (rev 03)
> 
> Interesting.. it looks like all you have in there is a Intel SIO chipset, a
> NCR controller, and a wietek p9100 video card.

There is also a floppy controller, Crystal Semiconductor CS4231 sound
chip, and an ISA ethernet card.  But of course, those aren't PCI.

> Could you try again with and without the -b, and this time with -i ./pci.ids.
> .  (sorry, my typo)  If you look at the supplied manpage, there is
> also a way to generate a PCI tree diagram.. I'd like to see that as
> well.. 

% lspci -vvv -x -i ./pci.ids
00:0b.0 Class 0000: 8086:0484 (rev 03)
        Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle+ MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
        Status: Cap- 66Mhz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
        Latency: 0
00: 86 80 84 04 0f 00 00 02 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
10: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
20: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
30: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

00:0c.0 Class 0000: 1000:0001 (rev 01)
        Control: I/O+ Mem- BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr+ Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
        Status: Cap- 66Mhz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
        Latency: 128
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 13
        Region 0: I/O ports at 1000000
00: 00 10 01 00 45 00 00 02 01 00 00 00 00 80 00 00
10: 01 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
20: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
30: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0d 01 00 00

00:0e.0 Class 0300: 100e:9100
        Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster- SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping+ SERR- FastB2B-
        Status: Cap- 66Mhz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 0
        Region 0: Memory at 01000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
00: 0e 10 00 91 82 00 00 02 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 00
10: 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
20: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
30: 00 00 0c 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00


% lspci -vvv -x -t -i ./pci.ids
-[00]-+-0b.0  8086:0484
      +-0c.0  1000:0001
      \-0e.0  100e:9100

> > As soon as I get RAM for my development machine, I'll get NetBSD installed
> > on it and begin work on a kernel.
> 
> Great.. In the meantime.. I'm wondering if your machine is really prep or
> CHRP.. the lsattr output makes me think it's CHRP.. but the devices
> don't look right to me.. 

How can I tell?
I did notice that in the output from:
lsattr -El sys0
outputs:
pre430core  false                    IBM PowerPC CHRP Computer                         True
modelname   IBM PPS Model 6015 (4dE) Machine name                                      False

which would lead one to believe that it's CHRP and not PReP.  Also, when I
compiled lspci and setpci, I built thme on a quad-proc 7025-F50, which, 
correct me if I'm wrong, is a CHRP machine.

> Try booting the machine, and when you get to the "keyboard" icon, or right
> before it says "boot" hit "1".  If that does nothing.. reboot, and try all 10
> digits.  5 should drop you into the SMS menu..  I think 8 or 1 on
> some machines drops you into OFW.  

I'm not certain if this machine has OpenFirmware.  When the machine
boots up pressing the F1 key prompts for the System Management Services 
disk, which I give to it and then it goes into the graphical SMS mode.
What do you want me to do once I'm in it?  I can do the same things in it
that I could do in the text-based SMS.

> But it varies from machine to machine, and docs on your machine are
> pretty scarce. 

Tell me about it!

Thanks (again),
Charles Fultz
fultz