27 Mar
2000
27 Mar
'00
6:13 p.m.
On Mar 28, 1:26, Technoid(a)cheta.net wrote:
In <38E04821.4B8943AE(a)mainecoon.com>om>, on
03/28/00
at 01:26 AM, Chris Kennedy <chris(a)mainecoon.com> said:
Is this a Sun
cdrom drive? Random SCSI cdrom drives are prone to not
working unless they have a sun-specific hack to make the ID string they
return something identifiable to the boot prom. Differing Suns have
differing ways of refering to CDROM drives, and some insist that the
CDROM drive show up as ID 6. Have you tried using the prom diagnostics
to probe the bus to see who is home?
I figured the id6 thing out by inferring from other info I hit on the web
which was pretty slim on specifics. The drive is 6 and is a Toshiba
XM-3701b. Maybe I need a single-speed cdrom?
Some older Sun boot PROMs won't recogise a CDROM unless set for 512-byte
blocks. Although the 3601 and later Toshibas recognise the SCSI
mode-select command to switch from normal CDROM 2048-byte operation to
Sun/SGI 512-byte operation, older PROMs don't issue that command. I'm not
sure about a Sparcstation 330, but you may need a drive that can be
explicitly set (such as a Toshiba 3301 or 3401; some Sony and Hitachi
drives also have a switch or jumper.
You might also want to switch from the "old" boot mode (prompt ">")
to the
"new" one (prompt "ok ") by typing "n". PROBE-SCSI, HELP,
and most other
commands are only available from the "new" prompt.
BTW there are issues with this machine
I have not yet resolved such as a parity error on a simm and what I think
might be a power problem.
I'd fix that first :-)
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
28 Mar
28 Mar
6:38 a.m.
pete(a)dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) wrote:
You might also want to switch from the "old" boot mode (prompt
">") to the
"new" one (prompt "ok ") by typing "n". PROBE-SCSI, HELP,
and most other
commands are only available from the "new" prompt.
Hi
It is OK to call the 'ok' the open-boot prompt. You can even
call it the Forth prompt, after all, that is what it is.
From the 'ok' prompt you have a fully
functional Forth
interpreter/compiler. It is even possible to write custom
code and save it into the NVRAM to do special functions on boot,
if you know what you are doing. I've done this kind
of stuff in the past with a book in one hand to tell
me the ins and outs of a unix machine. I don't need a book
on Forth because I already know it. Forth is the hardware
persons secret tool, don't tell software types, they won't
understand.
Dwight
9035
days inactive
9035
days old
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