12 Jan
2002
12 Jan
'02
5:10 p.m.
On Sat, 12 Jan 2002, Tothwolf wrote:
What you have said is basically what I was planning to do. Unfortunately,
after careful analysis of the screen printing next to the chips ("odd" and
"even" is printed there), I've determined that it won't be quite that
easy. I'm thinking about dumping the rom images and replacing part of it
if possible. I was hoping to use etherboot, but I'm not sure if I'll be
able to get it onto the system easily. Perhaps I can use the 34pin header
for that?
-- Pat
On Sat, 12 Jan 2002, Pat Finnegan wrote:
I've learned from somewhere (perhaps an earlier message on classiccmp)
that it uses its own proprietary protocol. Anyways, I'll have to hook my
10BaseT MAU up to it so I can connect it to my network.
Yah, it still 'starts up' as much as
possible. I'm about to stick a
2-channel scope on that to see if I can decipher the connector. If not,
I'll hook it up to one of Purdue's $5k 'logic analyzers' eventually...
Have you tried connecting it to the network with a sniffer running to see
how it tries to load its boot image? Here's my
prelim analysis after taking the cover off:
2) '286 Pheonix BIOS EPROM
3) Some 3com "6063-06 WYL" EPROM. I'm guessing the net-boot firmware.
4) Nat'l Semi 8390 ethernet controller IC
Well, from the looks of it, it has a typical 286 era bios with a network
boot rom as the second rom. The 839x series network controllers are very
common, and most everything supports them. Have you had a look at the
Etherboot project's website? http://etherboot.sourceforge.net/ Version 4.6
and earlier supports 286 hardware. If the second rom is indeed a feature
rom for netbooting, you could simply replace it with one you create with
etherboot and a programmer.
-Toth