At 7:41 PM -0400 5/26/01, you wrote:

:)Good thought, but no dice - the 320 and at least one of the 330s has it
:)at 21.  (And no, I'm not just believing labels; that's what the bootrom
:)hardware probe reports during startup.)

Ah well.  I guess you're stuck without netboot.

:)Probably.  I wonder if they can do serial console...pulling the video
:)would give you _physical_ space for another board, at least.

They can indeed do serial console.
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/hp300/faq.html#serialconsole

:)> By "die" do you mean lots of bad sectors, or mechanical/power supply
:)> problems.
:)
:)Mechanical, is my guess.  Based on the noises, it tries to spin up,
:)succeeds partially, gives up, and retries a half-dozen times before
:)giving up.  I forget the exact failure mode; I think the front-panel
:)lights turn red, or never stop flashing, or some such.

It could be the power supply sagging and not providing enough current to
spin the drive up.  When you're feeling adventurous, you might try putting
it into another drive box to see if that power supply spins it up.
Otherwise, you can probably crack the power supply open and see if there
are some pots to twist or if there are some exploded electrolytic caps.

:)A 16.6667MHz 68020, no less.  Yes, that's one reason I've given up on
:)it, for the time being at least.

Fair 'nuff.  The 425e will build kernels somewhat faster.

:)> Could be the bootloader.  ISTR that SYS_UBOOT had been updated in
:)> that time frame.
:)
:)Hm, I'll try installing the 1.4.2 SYS_UBOOT, maybe.

OK.

:)I've had no luck so far.  I poked at the wires to make sure one end was
:)driving TxD and the other RxD, and wired the modem control signals
:)null-modem style (on the DB25 side of a peecee 9/25 adapter).  No
:)success so far.  Someday when I have the time, I may break out all nine
:)pins and see if I can figure anything useful out.

Try a non-null modem cable.  Some of the 300/400 series models are a bit
weird that way.

:)No; there is nowhere such a board could plug in.  (Unless perhaps the
:)back panel could be replaced; I didn't poke around inside looking for a
:)place such a thing might plug in.)

Ah well.  No HPIB for you.  Remember, the 425e was really a stepping stone
to the first generation of series 700 models, which were in the same
chassis and used the same RAM, same drives, etc ...

:)Still no success.

I just forwarded you some old messages from Andre Schulze
<as8@Rcs1.urz.tu-dresden.de> from a year ago that I've been meaning to add
to a FAQ or something.  Bottom line is that you'll need a bootloader and
kernel from 1.4.3 or 1.5 or later for it to default to serial on the 425e.
Also, be sure to use the debug output from rbootd/rarp/bootparams to figure
out where in the boot process it is.  I'm still not entirely clear whether
the bootloader understands 425e serial, or if it's just the kernel.

  I've considered trying to build a version of
:)SYS_INST and/or SYS_UBOOT and/or the kernel that uses the ROM for I/O
:)and hence works with screen/keyboard even on the 425e...I may someday
:)do it, if I get to feeling really ambitious.  Might get far enough to
:)make the console work, even, but don't hold your breath.

That'd be rather cool.  This would probably also allow console on all those
382's floating around.  Also cool, of course, would be if the bootloader
used DHCP instead of bootparams/rarp.

So much cool hp300 stuff that needs to happen with no champion.

  -- MW