3 May
2019
3 May
'19
3:22 p.m.
Anyone know much about early MIPS workstations? I'm trying to get a
MIPS RS2030 to boot, without much luck so far. It goes through the
selftest but stops with the internal LED display at "5" accompanied by a
continuous beep.
Known problems:
- The Dallas DS1287 battery is flat; I can hack a 3V lithium onto that.
I assume it should still work to some extent even if the contents are lost?
- The RAM is highly suspect. I think it needs a minimum of 8MB to start
up. It has a good complement of SIPPs, but some of them are definitely
non-original and are actually 30-pin SIMMs that somebody has done a
rubbish job of soldering short stiff wires onto.
So I'd like to know what the RAM spec really is, whether I need to
reprogram the Dallas chip (and if so what goes where), and what the
diagnostic numbers on the internal LED mean. Anyone?
--
Pete
Pete Turnbull
3 May
3 May
4:25 p.m.
On 5/3/19 3:22 PM, Pete Turnbull via cctalk wrote:
Anyone know much about early MIPS workstations??
I'm trying to get a MIPS RS2030 to boot, without much luck so far.? It
goes through the selftest but stops with the internal LED display at "5"
accompanied by a continuous beep.
Known problems:
- The Dallas DS1287 battery is flat; I can hack a 3V lithium onto that. I assume it
should still work to some extent
even if the contents are lost?
- The RAM is highly suspect.? I think it needs a minimum of 8MB to start up.? It has a
good complement of SIPPs, but
some of them are definitely non-original and are actually 30-pin SIMMs that somebody has
done a rubbish job of soldering
short stiff wires onto.
So I'd like to know what the RAM spec really is, whether I need to reprogram the
Dallas chip (and if so what goes
where), and what the diagnostic numbers on the internal LED mean.? Anyone?
http://www.geekdot.com/the-mips-rs2030/
someone else had the same problem in the comments
4:47 p.m.
On 5/3/19 4:25 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
http://www.geekdot.com/the-mips-rs2030/
someone else had the same problem in the comments
also, there is a simulation running in mame
if you look at drivers/mips.cpp you'll find the nvram layout
/*
* The following isn't a real dump, but a hand-made nvram image that allows
* entry to the boot monitor. Variables can be adjusted via the monitor,
* and are laid out as follows:
*
* Offset Length Variable
* 0x0e 4 netaddr
* 0x12 1 lbaud
* 0x13 1 rbaud
* 0x14 20 bootfile
* 0x28 1 bootmode
* 0x29 1 console
* 0x2a 1 ponmask? or something similar
* 0x2b 3 unused?
* 0x2e 4 resetepc
* 0x32 4 resetra
* 0x36 1 keyswtch
* 0x37 1 flag
* 0x38 8 unused?
*
*/
5:04 p.m.
On 5/3/19 4:25 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
> So I'd like to know what the RAM spec really
is, whether I need to reprogram the Dallas chip (and if so what goes
> where), and what the diagnostic numbers on the internal LED mean.? Anyone?
>
I thought I threw them all away, but i just found two 3020s and a 2030 with a full set of
SIMMs
which seems to get through POST. Will try dumping the NVRAM
5:22 p.m.
On 04/05/2019 01:04, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
On 5/3/19 4:25 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
Thanks - that would be very useful, if you have time and suitable
hardware. I read the pages at geekdot.com a couple of weeks ago, but
I'd not seen the MAME data. I did find a manual about the ROM on
Bitsavers recently, so with that ans the MAME info I can probably work
out what some of those settings should be if necessary. Sadly nothing
I've found says anything about the internal LED display, but my
suspicion is that the error is to do with bad RAM.
--
Pete
Pete Turnbull
> So I'd like to know what the RAM spec
really is, whether I need to reprogram the Dallas chip (and if so what goes
> where), and what the diagnostic numbers on the internal LED mean.? Anyone?
>
I thought I threw them all away, but i just found two 3020s and a 2030 with a full set of
SIMMs
which seems to get through POST. Will try dumping the NVRAM
5:54 p.m.
On 5/3/19 5:22 PM, Pete Turnbull via cctalk wrote:
Thanks - that would be very useful, if you have time
and suitable hardware.? I read the pages at geekdot.com a couple of
weeks ago, but I'd not seen the MAME data.? I did find a manual about the ROM on
Bitsavers recently, so with that ans
the MAME info I can probably work out what some of those settings should be if
necessary.? Sadly nothing I've found says
anything about the internal LED display, but my suspicion is that the error is to do with
bad RAM.
I see we all were talking about the M2030 around 3 years ago
http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctech/2016-May/017829.html
4 May
4 May
2:58 a.m.
On 04/05/2019 01:54, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
I see we all were talking about the M2030 around 3 years ago
http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctech/2016-May/017829.html
Some useful information in there, but I have the original MIPS keyboard
and mouse.
--
Pete
Pete Turnbull
3 May
3 May
6:54 p.m.
On 5/3/19 3:22 PM, Pete Turnbull via cctalk wrote:
Anyone know much about early MIPS workstations?
RISCos 4.52 src, incl monitor src up now under
http://bitsavers.org/bits/MIPS/RISCos
7:39 p.m.
On Fri, May 3, 2019, 7:53 PM Al Kossow via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
On 5/3/19 3:22 PM, Pete Turnbull via cctalk wrote:
I have QIC tapes and a 300mb hard drive with riscos on it. I'm unsure the
version, and it may be for the rs3xxx. I'll have to check. I think I still
have the workstation and would be happy to see it go to a good home... I'll
check...
Warner
Anyone know much about early MIPS workstations?
RISCos 4.52 src, incl monitor src up now under
http://bitsavers.org/bits/MIPS/RISCos
4 May
4 May
3 a.m.
On 04/05/2019 02:54, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
On 5/3/19 3:22 PM, Pete Turnbull via cctalk wrote:
Once I can get the machine to stop wailing, that will be useful!
--
Pete
Pete Turnbull
Anyone know much about early MIPS workstations?
RISCos 4.52 src, incl monitor src up now under
http://bitsavers.org/bits/MIPS/RISCos
8:43 a.m.
On 5/4/19 3:00 AM, Pete Turnbull via cctalk wrote:
Once I can get the machine to stop wailing, that will
be useful!
I pulled the frame buffer out of my 2030 and got up as far as the
monitor on port 0 at 9600. My NVRAM is dead so I'm digging around
trying to find another DS1287. The machine has an XE1287 in it and
the battery terminals don't seem to be on the pin 12-13 end like the
Dallas.
I ordered a DEC BC29 cable to play with the frame buffers on the
machines that I still have.
Also, looking at the driver code it looks like the keyboard on the 2030
expects to be XT protocol.
11:03 a.m.
On Sat, May 4, 2019 at 9:42 AM Al Kossow via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
On 5/4/19 3:00 AM, Pete Turnbull via cctalk wrote:
When I played with mine years ago, the only thing different about it was
that it had a different device ID than expected. I had to hack FreeBSD of
the era to recognize that keyboard id correctly. Don't know if I ever tried
the opposite way or not.
Warner
Once I can get the machine to stop wailing, that
will be useful!
I pulled the frame buffer out of my 2030 and got up as far as the
monitor on port 0 at 9600. My NVRAM is dead so I'm digging around
trying to find another DS1287. The machine has an XE1287 in it and
the battery terminals don't seem to be on the pin 12-13 end like the
Dallas.
I ordered a DEC BC29 cable to play with the frame buffers on the
machines that I still have.
Also, looking at the driver code it looks like the keyboard on the 2030
expects to be XT protocol.
2060
days inactive
2061
days old
11 comments
3 participants
participants (3)
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aek＠bitsavers.org -
imp＠bsdimp.com -
pete＠dunnington.plus.com