On Wed, Nov 10, 1999 at 02:08:03AM +1100, Robert Elz wrote:
>     Date:        Tue, 09 Nov 1999 20:56:55 +1100
>     From:        Robert Elz <kre@munnari.OZ.AU>
>     Message-ID:  <26901.942141415@munnari.OZ.AU>
> 
>   | 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).
> 
> I tried that one - got verification error loading it (and being a bit dumb,
> instead of just using the update prog tat was running to try loading a
> different SRM version instead, I powered off ... even the failsafe boot
> for doing just firmware update doesn't work on that motherboard now).
> 
> So, I switched to another motherboard, this one had never been updated
> from ARC version whatever came with it - I didn't try 3.7 again, but found
> a 4.9 (or maybe 5.0 - it is version 5.0 CD, but claims to be 4.9 SRM for
> the pc164).   Switched to that one, then upgraded that to 5.5.
>
[...]
> 
> If anyone has any idea how to recover from truly trashed flash (I did do
> the jumber trick for failsafe boot) I'd appreciate hearing of it.  Someday
> I might want (or need) to use the currently dead motherboard...   It does
> nothing, no beeps, never enables video (monitor stays in "no signal" state),
> sends nothing to serial port...

You can do it using the SROM debugger, but it's going to be hard.

You need to connect an MMJ cable to the debug port on the motherboard,
power up the machine and hit "A" several times to let it autobaud.  If
it doesn't do that correctly then you need to re-crystal and jumper
the board to a slower speed.

Once in the SROM, you may need to get the MMU and host bridge and ISA
bridge set up so that you can actually access the flash memory.  At that
point, you can upload an SRM image formatted as S-records using one of
the SROM commands.  It's also possible that you can just upload the
image into RAM and jump into it, at which point it may initialize the
hardware so you can load it into flash.

I *may* have an SROM debugger manual and tools to produce a (broken,
but working "enough") version of SRM as S-records on a CD around
here somewhere.  I will look.  Ross might also be able to help you 
out.

-- 
Thor Lancelot Simon	                                      tls@rek.tjls.com
	"And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?"