Subject: Re: Floppy and EB164's
To: Daniel Carosone <dan@geek.com.au>
From: Robert Elz <kre@munnari.OZ.AU>
List: port-alpha
Date: 11/09/1999 20:56:55
    Date:        Tue,  9 Nov 1999 20:25:48 +1100 (EST)
    From:        Daniel Carosone <dan@geek.com.au>
    Message-ID:  <14375.59287.845203.482996@passion.geek.com.au>

  | Whatever the reasons, I can now add two more datapoints;

I have been doing some OS version testing tonight - I tested FreeBSD again,
and I had remembered incorrectly, after halting FreeBSD, and power off,
the nvram data was lost.    Then I installed Tru64 v5 and tested that one.
Power off after the installation itself, and the nvram contents were
preserved.  Booted it again (the installed Tru64) halt, and power off/on
and nvram lost.   The difference between the installation and later boot
may be that during installation the nvram contents were updated (the boot
device is set) - that may achieve much the same as setting a variable after
halt.

I think this rules out any kind of OS problem, and leaves it squarely with
SRM, answering the question I asked a couple of days ago.

  | I did have one problem, however: at least the 4.9 fwupdate would only
  | work when run with a vga console; on serial it failed to get input.  

I have seen that too - once I find a monitor and keyboard, I will have a go
as well, I think I have located a 3.7 firmware set (CD).

kre