Apollo Ethernet EPROM mystery

[Phil Blundell]

On Thu, 2019-03-28 at 09:43 -0700, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
> Does anyone have a working Apollo 3C505 ISA ethernet board handy to look at?

I have a 3c505 somewhere but I don't think it is an Apollo one.

The Linux kernel configuration help message from that era read:

        tristate "Apollo 3c505 support"
        depends on NET_ETHERNET && APOLLO
        help
          Say Y or M here if your Apollo has a 3Com 3c505 ISA Ethernet
card.
          If you don't have one made for Apollos, you can use one from
a PC,
          except that your Apollo won't be able to boot from it
(because the
          code in the ROM will be for a PC).

which does indeed seem to imply that the Apollo units did have the boot
PROM populated, and that the only difference between the Apollo and
non-Apollo variants was the bits in that PROM.

I don't think the Linux device driver had any mechanism for loading
firmware into the card which would also suggest that it must have had
an onboard firmware PROM as well.  But I'll see if I can locate my unit
later and confirm that.

p.