On Fri, 29 Nov 1996 09:52:07 -0800 (PST) 
 Curt Sampson <cjs@portal.ca> wrote:

 > I've got a possibility of picking up very cheaply a Sparc 5, which
 > I gather NetBSD is running nicely on these days. However, apparently
 > it doesn't boot from any device; it halts on `Interrupt Level 15.'
 > 
 > Is this something that I might be able to fix? Or should I just pass
 > on it?

Is this using the NetBSD boot block?  The boot program blocks out
interrupts level 11 and below, to avoid spurious floppy interrupts,
but to allow L1-A while the kernel loads (see line 111 of sparc/stand/srt0.S).

Ok, level 15 is NMI... looking at nmi_sun4m in locore.s, it appears
as if this happens when you have a memory error; memerr4m() is the only
function called from the NMI handler.

So, before you buy it, make sure the memory is OK :-)  Does SunOS or
Solaris boot OK on it?

Jason R. Thorpe                                       thorpej@nas.nasa.gov
NASA Ames Research Center                               Home: 408.866.1912
NAS: M/S 258-6                                          Work: 415.604.0935
Moffett Field, CA 94035                                Pager: 415.428.6939