On Wed, 14 Jan 1998 abs@mono.org wrote:

: >Synopsis:       Dead eeprom screws ethernet on sparc

Please see the "Sun NVRAM/Hostid FAQ", available at:

http://www.squirrel.com/squirrel/sun-nvram-hostid.faq.html

For the short-short version, if your NVRAM battery is dead, you can do the
following to resurrect it until power-off, at the PROM prompt: 

> n (go to new command mode if necessary)
ok 0 f mkp
ok 8 0 20 AA BB CC AABBCC mkpl
^D^R
ok

AA, BB, and CC are octets of your choosing.  ^D^R is Ctrl-D Ctrl-R.  If you
get a Sun copyright notice instead of just `ok' after the mkpl, chang the
`0 f mkp' to `1 f mkp' and try again.

I'll be closing this PR now.  This is not something appropriate for patching
the kernel, as an invalid IDPROM can cause you other troubles and you
_should_ fix it at the PROM prompt and not in the kernel.

=====
===== Todd Vierling (Personal tv@pobox.com) =====
== "There's a myth that there is a scarcity of justice to go around, so
== that if we extend justice to 'those people,' it will somehow erode the
== quality of justice everyone else receives."  -- Maria Price