On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, Michael 'Maki' Kato wrote:

> I've recently come into a NC215 X-terminal.  These are probably the
> last x- terms Tek produced.  They have a NEC VR-4300 @100MHz in them.

Tektronix sold their NC division to NCD some time within the last two
years. I flashed mine with the latest boot monitor and the logo is now NCD
yet still has the Tek logo on the case.

I have an NC221. They're decent boxes considering they only have 16-bit
color displays (Cirrus Logic CLGD5465 video chipset). From what I could
make of the model numbers, yours will only support up to a 15" monitor. I
believe there are also NC217 and NC219s as well. Then again, that may be
hooey but NCD has gone and changed all the model numbers according to this
technical flyer: http://www.ncd.com/products/hardware/ncs/nc200ds.pdf

> I think they booted WinCE 2.0 or something, so it should be Little Endian.  

It has a WinDD ICA client or some cruft like that. Basically a Citrix
ICA client that'll let you connect to a metaframe server or WinNT
with terminal services. I keep meaning to try using the terminal services
that come with Win2K pro server but haven't gotten around to it. The
version I've got is probably so old it won't work but I've plenty of Unix
apps to keep me happy anyhow.

> Does anyone have experience with these?  I don't have an image to boot on 
> this. 

You can get everything you need right here:
ftp://ftp.ncd.com/pub/nwd/NCBridge/

The NVRAM actually has the license for the NCBridge software. Without it
you wouldn't be able to use any of it so don't accidentally nuke it.

I wrote up a little "howto" setup file a few months back. I'll send it to
you later tonight. If the serial number on your 215 begins with B02 or B01
you'll only be able to flash with the small boot mon file.

> Anyone working on netbsd for it?

I think I made a query about it some time ago and nobody answered. I
imagine it's one of those devices that's possible to port to but without
some specs from NCD or a lot of reverse engineering it may never happen.
Alas, such is the fate of closed architecture hardware.

You can get specs and a PDF of the service manual here:
http://www.ncd.com/support/ncs/200/index.html

Here's another link with some more specs:
http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/mfcf/sysadmin/planning/recommendations/thin-clients/nc.html

Most of the network config options can be viewed from the boot mon help
files but if you want to hook up a decent sized monitor you'll want to
look up the res modify commands in the service manual. Actually, I think
it's in a separate file (monitor200.pdf). Running 'selftest monset -1'
will scan through all possible options. Don't dowload that huge 21MB file
in the docs directory on the FTP site. I can send you relevant PDFs if
you're unable to find them.

> Any idea what format executable it'll boot?

/tftpboot/tekxp/boot> file os.500
os.500: MIPSEB COFF executable (paged) stripped - version 0.0

-Gary