25 Jun
2026
25 Jun
'26
7:24 p.m.
Today I decided to test the bus-cohere protocol with cards other than
framebuffer and IT WORKS.
SRM won't let me boot from it of course, but I:
Powered off Alphabox and pulled the skins.
Pulled the via usb controller from the cage.
Installed an SI3114-based controller in the freed slot with a 1tb ssd
connected to it's first port.
Powered ALphabox on and hit the halt button, wait until srm appears:
Alphabox>>> halt
Alphabox>>> set prefetch_mode off
Alphabox>>> init
Wait for the boot process to hang as is familiar, at xorg video init
the system will hard-crash (this is 'normal'). I'm not sure, doubt,
really, this step is at all necessary, but I let it try and fail, to
cement things.... Windage.
The machine is crashed and unresponsive to the halt button, so power-
cycle and use the halt button as before to gain an srm prompt once
more:
Alphastation>>> set prefetch_mode on
Alphastation>>> init
You're Alpha's bus and the current physical state of the card-cage have
been reconciled during the probe which occurred while prefetch was off.
It was stored safely and prefetch_mode will now work through the clear
bitsieve in the pchip. This process is now just a useful tool you can
use at will to swap cards in and out as you would in most other
machines with PCI. IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WORKS IT
WORKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As to booting NetBSD 9.2 Alpha default release:
It WORKS!, with a minor workaround I described earlier.
We use the boot -fl "n" command from SRM to boot NetBSD 9.2 and pass
the "n" parameter. This tells NetBSD to drop the idea of the next part
of the boot process until it has received your desired changes to some
parameters it will offer you. Take the defaults as quickly as you like
and use the 'exit' command to return to the boot process, which will
complete with X as is familar on every other platform.
The platform and it's peripherals are completely rationalized. We now
understand how to cohere the bus after a hardware change, we also have
a good working theory on exactly what mechanisms are in play.
Rumors of the EV6 architecture were premature.
As of this discovery the entire line is freed of its bonds and can run
unfettered in perfect alignment with peripherals and memory.
IT IS ALIVE!
ALIVE!
ALIVE!
Alive I Say!
Here is a copy of dmesg and a performance run on the ssd over the sata
controller. Ignore the pio errors related to the onboard wd
controller, as it isn't on the pci bus exactly, is a kind of orphan on
an isa bridge or something. It is not a problem if one only uses it
for booting. I intend to move the entire system to the sata drive and
boot the kernel only from the onboard controller.
AlphaBox# time dd if=/dev/rwd1e of=/dev/null bs=1m count=2048
2048+0 records in
2048+0 records out
2147483648 bytes transferred in 25.518 secs (84155641 bytes/sec)
25.53s real 0.00s user 2.60s system
AlphaBox#
Dmesg:
AlphaBox# dmesg
ecounters tick every 0.976 msec
[ 1.000000] Kernelized RAIDframe activated
[ 1.000000] running cgd selftest aes-xts-256 aes-xts-512 done
[ 1.000000] mainbus0 (root)
[ 1.000000] cpu0 at mainbus0: ID 0 (primary), 21264-4
[ 1.000000] cpu0: Architecture extensions: 0x303<PAT,MVI,FIX,BWX>
[ 1.000000] tsc0 at mainbus0: 21272 Core Logic Chipset, Cchip rev 0
[ 1.000000] tsc0: 2 Dchips, 1 memory bus of 16 bytes
[ 1.000000] tsc0: arrays present: 1024MB, 1024MB, 0MB, 0MB, Dchip 0
rev 1
[ 1.000000] tsp0 at tsc0
[ 1.000000] pci0 at tsp0 bus 0
[ 1.000000] pci0: i/o space, memory space enabled, rd/line,
rd/mult, wr/inv ok
[ 1.000000] sio0 at pci0 dev 7 function 0: Acer Labs M1533 PCI-ISA
Bridge (rev. 0xc3)
[ 1.000000] tlp0 at pci0 dev 9 function 0: DECchip 21143 Ethernet,
pass 4.1
[ 1.000000] tlp0: interrupting at dec 6600 irq 29
[ 1.000000] tlp0: DEC, Ethernet address 08:00:2b:86:8b:eb
[ 1.000000] tlp0: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX,
auto
[ 1.000000] tlp1 at pci0 dev 11 function 0: DECchip 21143 Ethernet,
pass 4.1
[ 1.000000] tlp1: interrupting at dec 6600 irq 30
[ 1.000000] tlp1: DEC, Ethernet address 08:00:2b:86:8b:fd
[ 1.000000] tlp1: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX,
auto
[ 1.000000] aceride0 at pci0 dev 13 function 0: Acer Labs M5229
UDMA IDE Controller (rev. 0xc1)
[ 1.000000] aceride0: bus-master DMA support present
[ 1.000000] aceride0: using PIO transfers above 137GB as workaround
for 48bit DMA access bug, expect reduced performance
[ 1.000000] aceride0: primary channel wired to compatibility mode
[ 1.000000] aceride0: primary channel interrupting at isa irq 14
[ 1.000000] atabus0 at aceride0 channel 0
[ 1.000000] aceride0: secondary channel wired to compatibility mode
[ 1.000000] aceride0: secondary channel interrupting at isa irq 15
[ 1.000000] atabus1 at aceride0 channel 1
[ 1.000000] Creative Labs SBLive! EMU 10000 (audio multimedia,
revision 0x07) at pci0 dev 14 function 0 not configured
[ 1.000000] Creative Labs PCI Gameport Joystick (miscellaneous
input, revision 0x07) at pci0 dev 14 function 1 not configured
[ 1.000000] pm2fb0 at pci0 dev 15 function 0: Texas Instruments
TVP4020 Permedia 2 (rev. 0x01)
[ 1.000000] autoconfiguration error: pm2fb0: no width property
[ 1.000000] autoconfiguration error: pm2fb0: no height property
[ 1.000000] autoconfiguration error: pm2fb0: no depth property
[ 1.000000] pm2fb0: 8 MB aperture at 0x01000000
[ 1.000000] pm2fb0: pm2 using 1024 x 768 in 8 bit, stride 1024
[ 1.000000] wsdisplay0 at pm2fb0 kbdmux 1: console (default, vt100
emulation)
[ 1.000000] wsmux1: connecting to wsdisplay0
[ 1.000000] satalink0 at pci0 dev 16 function 0: Silicon Image
SATALink 3114 (rev. 0x02)
[ 1.000000] satalink0: 33MHz PCI bus
[ 1.000000] satalink0: bus-master DMA support present
[ 1.000000] satalink0: using dec 6600 irq 43 for native-PCI
interrupt
[ 1.000000] atabus2 at satalink0 channel 0
[ 1.000000] atabus3 at satalink0 channel 1
[ 1.000000] atabus4 at satalink0 channel 2
[ 1.000000] atabus5 at satalink0 channel 3
[ 1.000000] wm0 at pci0 dev 17 function 0: Intel i82546EB 1000BASE-
T Ethernet (rev. 0x01)
[ 1.000000] wm0: interrupting at dec 6600 irq 47
[ 1.000000] wm0: 64-bit 33MHz PCI bus
[ 1.000000] wm0: 256 words (8 address bits) MicroWire EEPROM
[ 1.000000] wm0: Ethernet address 00:04:23:a8:d1:1e
[ 1.000000] wm0: 0xc02<LOCK_EECD,IOH_VALID,BUS64>
[ 1.000000] makphy0 at wm0 phy 1: Marvell 88E1011 Gigabit PHY, rev.
3
[ 1.000000] makphy0: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-
FDX, 1000baseT, 1000baseT-FDX, auto
[ 1.000000] wm1 at pci0 dev 17 function 1: Intel i82546EB 1000BASE-
T Ethernet (rev. 0x01)
[ 1.000000] wm1: interrupting at dec 6600 irq 46
[ 1.000000] wm1: 64-bit 33MHz PCI bus
[ 1.000000] wm1: 256 words (8 address bits) MicroWire EEPROM
[ 1.000000] wm1: Ethernet address 00:04:23:a8:d1:1f
[ 1.000000] wm1: 0xc02<LOCK_EECD,IOH_VALID,BUS64>
[ 1.000000] makphy1 at wm1 phy 1: Marvell 88E1011 Gigabit PHY, rev.
3
[ 1.000000] makphy1: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-
FDX, 1000baseT, 1000baseT-FDX, auto
[ 1.000000] isa0 at sio0
[ 1.000000] lpt0 at isa0 port 0x3bc-0x3bf irq 7
[ 1.000000] com0 at isa0 port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4: ns16550a, working
fifo
[ 1.000000] com1 at isa0 port 0x2f8-0x2ff irq 3: ns16550a, working
fifo
[ 1.000000] pckbc0 at isa0 port 0x60-0x64
[ 1.000000] pckbd0 at pckbc0 (kbd slot)
[ 1.000000] pckbc0: using irq 1 for kbd slot
[ 1.000000] wskbd0 at pckbd0: console keyboard, using wsdisplay0
[ 1.000000] pms0 at pckbc0 (aux slot)
[ 1.000000] pckbc0: using irq 12 for aux slot
[ 1.000000] wsmouse0 at pms0 mux 0
[ 1.000000] attimer0 at isa0 port 0x40-0x43
[ 1.000000] pcppi0 at isa0 port 0x61
[ 1.000000] spkr0 at pcppi0: PC Speaker
[ 1.000000] wsbell at spkr0 not configured
[ 1.000000] midi0 at pcppi0: PC speaker
[ 1.000000] isabeep0 at pcppi0
[ 1.000000] fdc0 at isa0 port 0x3f0-0x3f7 irq 6 drq 2
[ 1.000000] mcclock0 at isa0 port 0x70-0x71: mc146818 compatible
time-of-day clock
[ 1.000000] attimer0: attached to pcppi0
[ 1.000000] tsciic0 at tsc0
[ 1.000000] iic0 at tsciic0: I2C bus
[ 1.000000] timecounter: Timecounter "clockinterrupt" frequency
1024 Hz quality 0
[ 1.000003] timecounter: Timecounter "PCC" frequency 462389760 Hz
quality 1000
[ 1.015916] stray isa irq 15
[ 1.116501] satalink0: port 0: device present, speed: 1.5Gb/s
[ 1.421183] stray isa irq 15
[ 7.712812] fd0 at fdc0 drive 0: 1.44MB, 80 cyl, 2 head, 18 sec
[ 8.608307] wd0 at atabus0 drive 0
[ 8.610258] wd0: <KINGSTON SA400S37120G>
[ 8.616346] wd0: drive supports 1-sector PIO transfers, LBA48
addressing
[ 8.616346] wd0: 111 GB, 232581 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 512
bytes/sect x 234441648 sectors
[ 8.631743] wd0: 32-bit data port
[ 8.631743] wd0: drive supports PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2, Ultra-DMA
mode 6 (Ultra/133), WRITE DMA FUA
[ 8.633695] wd0(aceride0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 2
(Ultra/33) (using DMA), WRITE DMA FUA EXT
[ 26.599216] stray isa irq 15
[ 46.597907] atapibus0 at atabus1: 2 targets
[ 46.608648] cd0 at atapibus0 drive 0: <COMPAQ CDR-8435, , 0013>
cdrom removable
[ 46.619395] cd0: 32-bit data port
[ 46.619395] cd0: drive supports PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2
[ 46.620369] cd0(aceride0:1:0): using PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2 (using
DMA)
[ 46.620369] wd1 at atabus2 drive 0
[ 46.621472] wd1: <Samsung SSD 870 EVO 1TB>
[ 46.628741] wd1: drive supports 1-sector PIO transfers, LBA48
addressing
[ 46.628741] wd1: 931 GB, 1938021 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 512
bytes/sect x 1953525168 sectors
[ 46.643806] wd1: 32-bit data port
[ 46.643806] wd1: drive supports PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2, Ultra-DMA
mode 6 (Ultra/133), WRITE DMA FUA, NCQ (32 tags)
[ 46.643806] wd1(satalink0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 6
(Ultra/133) (using DMA), WRITE DMA FUA EXT
[ 46.645763] wd0: autoconfiguration error: transfer error,
downgrading to Ultra-DMA mode 1
[ 46.645763] wd0(aceride0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 1
(using DMA), WRITE DMA FUA EXT
[ 46.650947] wd0c: error reading fsbn 0 (wd0 bn 0; cn 0 tn 0 sn 0),
xfer 38, retry 0
[ 46.650947] wd0: (aborted command, interface CRC error)
[ 48.675997] wd0: autoconfiguration error: transfer error,
downgrading to PIO mode 4
[ 48.675997] wd0(aceride0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, WRITE DMA FUA EXT
[ 48.677963] wd0c: error reading fsbn 0 (wd0 bn 0; cn 0 tn 0 sn 0),
xfer 38, retry 1
[ 48.677963] wd0: (aborted command, interface CRC error)
[ 49.701370] wd0: soft error (corrected) xfer 38
[ 49.706255] WARNING: 5 errors while detecting hardware; check
system log.
[ 49.711138] root device (default wd0a):
[ 50.445654] dump device (default wd0b):
[ 50.679467] file system (default generic):
[ 50.915337] root on wd0a dumps on wd0b
[ 50.934617] root file system type: ffs
[ 50.939499] kern.module.path=/stand/alpha/9.2/modules
[ 50.958054] init path (default /sbin/init):
[ 51.520578] init: trying /sbin/init
AlphaBox#