Subject: Re: serial console on 425e?
To: Michael Wolfson <mw34@cornell.edu>
From: Alfred Arnold <alfred@ccac.rwth-aachen.de>
List: port-hp300
Date: 11/16/1998 19:04:33
>After it finds the keyboard and beeps twice during power-up tests, hit
>return.  This will present you with a list of bootable devices.  Press C.
>
>This will pop up a menu to configure your hardware.  Search down it to
>find
>something like:
>I/O Devices
>Remote
>Serial Console (Local or Remote)
>
>Pick Remote and set it up to be a permanent change.  Now your serial
>console should work at 9600 8N1, no flow control.

Sorry, but my 425e doesn't have such a menu point.  All I have is:

I/O Configuration --> LAN, SCSI, HP PARRALLEL
SYSTEM --> SCAN, SELECTED, STORE SELECTED
BOOT MODE SELECTION --> DOMAIN, HPUX, UNDEFINED

and I've tried all three serial ports - nada!

The version of my boot prom is 3.0 - maybe you have a different version?

In the meantime, I got a mail from someone else having exactly the same
problems.  What makes SGC so difficult to support?  I definitely would
like to help, but without any HP machine running NetBSD this seems to
be difficult.

I'll continue being subscribed to this list, and I will make another try
when the situation changes.  In the meantime, I'll try to reuse as many
components as possible: The monochrome monitor works nicely on my 700/RX
terminal, the RAMs look like ordinary PS/2 simms with parity and reusing
the SCSI stuff is definitely no problem. The rest will however be used as
I already outlined :-(

Excuse me if I sound bitter, but am I right in the conclusion that the
NetBSD developer community is a bit lazy in supporting graphics consoles?
Most of the DECstation graphics cards aren't supported (OK - they seem to
lack proper documentation), the VAX port just starts to support frame
buffers at all (but you may have to live with a non-working SCSI - that's 
why my VAXstations still run Ultrix...), and now this.

Alfred Arnold

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alfred Arnold                         E-Mail: alfred@ccac.rwth-aachen.de
Computer Club at the                  Phone: +49-241-406526
Technical University of Aachen        Fax:   +49-241-406527
topics: Turbo-Pascal, UNIX/NetBSD, Switch-Mode Power Supplies

"The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the day
they start making vacuum cleaners" - Ernst Jan Plugge