yeah, this didn't work for my 5000/20...
I wish a had a manual... but I bought it as ex stock from my uni...

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From: 	Reini (Reinhold Huber)[SMTP:Reinhold.Huber@Fachschaften.TU-Muenchen.DE (Reinhold Huber)]
Sent: 	Friday, 17 October 1997 19:15
To: 	Rudi Robert Bierach
Cc: 	Reini (Reinhold Huber)
Subject: 	Re: Anyway to autoboot?



On Fri, 17 Oct 1997, Rudi Robert Bierach wrote:

> Is there a way to get the decstation to boot automatically on power up?
> Is it some env that has to be set?
I don't know about the 5000s, but about the 3100 and 2100.
There is an environment variable which determines bootmode, see page
C-17 in the second part 'Operator's guide' of DECstation 2100/3100 
Hardware Installation / Operator's Guide handbook:

bootpath Nonvolatile (something of the form rz(0,X,0)<kernelname>, with X
                     SCSI ID of your boot disk
bootmode Nonvolatile ('*': bootconsole,
                      'a': autoboot, like typing 'auto' on console prompt)
Try
setenv bootmode a

Hope this helps.

Greetings,
Reinhold Huber