>From: Manuel Bouyer <bouyer@antioche.lip6.fr>
>
>On Thu, Jun 12, 2003 at 03:22:49PM +0100, Julian Coleman wrote:
>> > I have a sun3/80 with, of course, a dead nvram battery. I did the hack
>> > described in the sun nvram faq
>>                                                          Howver I get
>> > "New TOD Module installed, Initializing and Starting the Clock."
>> > each time, even after reprogramming the nvram as described in the faq.
>> 
>> > Has someone sucessfully installed a new nvram in a 3/80 ?
>> 
>> Yep.  I followed the NVRAM FAQ and I'm fairly sure I saw the "Initializing"
>> message just once.  It's been fine from then on (it was a year or so ago).
>
>I tried again, still not good. What prom rev do you have ?

I too have done this procedure...

>Mine is Rev 3.0.3

I think I did it with OBP 2.X... I have two 3/80s... one has 2.X firmware
and the other 3.0.... I haven't tried the procedure with the 3.0 OBP, but
I have to as the OBP is dead too.

>The FAQ says that the 3/80 won't start the clock by itself, but it seems mine
>does, so there may be different behaviors for different prom revs.

The OS is supposed to start the TOD clock.  SunOS does... not sure about
NetBSD, etc.

IMHO, if your using NTP, it would almost be better to either not have the OS
start the TOD clock, or have the OS stop it at shutdown time (which with
newer OBPs on Sun4c and up could probably be done with an nvramrc ?).  Then
these chips would last much longer (especially if they spend most of their
time powered off like most of my old Sun4c and earlier gear).  I specifically
went through my sun4c systems and stopped the TOD clock.  I have a limited
number of good used spares (that I stopped the TOD clock on) that I
pulled from some motorola comm boards being disposed of... reprogrammed 
them on a SS2 and then stopped the TOD clock.

>
>--
>Manuel Bouyer, LIP6, Universite Paris VI.           Manuel.Bouyer@lip6.fr
>     NetBSD: 24 ans d'experience feront toujours la difference
>--

-- Curt

OH... BTW, a direct reply to you bounced with a failure... with a reference
to a URL (for the reason) which doesn't exist !.... here is that for reference:

   ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<bouyer@antioche.lip6.fr>
    (reason: 550 5.0.0 <bsd@hawkmountain.net>... Go away ! (see 
http://www.prism.uvsq.fr/~pda/kit-jussieu/rejet))

   ----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to isis.lip6.fr.:
>>> MAIL From:<bsd@hawkmountain.net> SIZE=2639
<<< 550 5.0.0 <bsd@hawkmountain.net>... Go away ! (see 
http://www.prism.uvsq.fr/~pda/kit-jussieu/rejet)
554 5.0.0 Service unavailable