I have 2 VAXstatoin 4000/90 and both behave the same like yours, simply
the NVRAM looks like a little bit messy but no problem about it, the
VAXstation will work very fine anyway

Rick


On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Roger Ivie wrote:

> > On 17 Sep, Wulf, Bernhard B DS-RHR-SI-APC wrote:
> > 
> > > Then I tried out my freshly burned NETBSD CD-Rom on that VAX.
> > [...]
> > > After that, the VAX is a bit confused now...
> > > 
> > > The POST will give an error like "?? 000 8 sys 0512" and the 
> > > autostart didn't work anymore ( the error is fatal ).
> > This error is knowen to us. I have the same trouble on my -90.
> > Unfortunately nobody knows what error it is and what caused it. And
> 
> I don't know if this is the problem, but I once found out the hard way 
> that the flash on the 4000/90 is configured to be written.
> 
> I was doing some development for a raw NVAX system, for which I developed
> my own FORTH. I did the original base FORTH system on a 4000/60 (booted
> by Ethernet from my trusty 3100), then tried a 4000/90 for the NVAX
> specific words. I accidentally toasted my 4000/90.
> 
> The I/O space used for the console on the 4000/60 is occupied by flash
> on the 4000/90. I had forgotten to assemble my code with the 4000/90
> consoel support, so I was using the 4000/60 console. Running the
> console involves fun things like setting bits in one of the registers.
> It just so happened that the address for one of the console DZ
> registers on the 4000/60 is at the location of some sort of console
> message in the flash of a 4000/90, which just happens to have a bunch
> of ASCII spaces there. When my 4000/60 console code tried to work
> with the 4000/60 console, it read those spaces from the flash, set
> a bit, and wrote them back.
> 
> The flash on a 4000/90 is made by AMD. Coincidentally, the Erase Flash
> command for the particular chips they used is 0x20; i.e., an ASCII
> space! I managed to accidentally erase the flash in my 4000/90 by
> inadvertantly attempting to manipulate the 4000/60's console hardware
> on the machine.
> 
> What really got me in trouble, though, was when I fixed it. I wrote
> a program to suck the flash from another machine, pulled the chips on
> my dead 4000/90, and re-blasted them. This would have been OK, except
> that the chips are really, really close tot he power connector. So I
> put sockets in because I couldn't solder to one side of the chips. The
> next time field circus looked at the machine I got in trouble.
> 
> Roger Ivie
> ivie@cc.usu.edu
>