[rescue] SPARCstation 1 boot woes

[David McMackins II]

I have made an interesting find. I went looking around the web again
and found this entry on the retro web:
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/sun-sparcstation-1#bios

They have a download there for OBP 1.0 with the correct Sun part number
matched against this table:
https://dogemicrosystems.ca/pub/Sun/System_Handbook/Sun_syshbk_V3.4/Systems/Sun4c/PROM_BootPROM_Sun4c.html

However, I only have one PROM chip left, and it's not an EPROM, so I
have only one attempt before I have to buy something. If you can get
your image and the part number from the sticker, I'd be interested to
do a comparison with this download to see if it's the same.

I'm on the fence about using this image I found given the
circumstances. I did peek inside on a hex editor to confirm it really
is an OBP. It has the same 3-byte magic number at the beginning and I
found lots of text strings related to the NVRAM flags, so that is
promising. I wasn't sure how to find a version number, though.

Also, re: Dave and the SS1+, the table I linked above seems to indicate
that OBP 1.3 has separate versions for the SS1 and SS1+, so although it
would be good to dump and archive it anyway, I do not have high hopes
that it would work properly on a regular SS1. Interestingly, though, it
seems they are both supported by the same revision of OBP 2.9.

-- 
Regards,

David E. McMackins II
www.mcmackins.org

On Thu, 2025-05-29 at 12:27 -0700, Todd Vernon via rescue wrote:
>  Is there a way to read the EPROM into a file without using the
> burner?  If so, I could get the 1.0 OBP version pretty quick.
> 
> -t
> 
> 
> Todd Vernon
> Entrepreneur | Investor
> Email: todd at toddvernon.com
> LinkedIn: toddvernon
> 
> 
>  
> On May 29, 2025 at 1:22:04 PM, Dave McGuire via rescue
> <rescue at sunhelp.org> wrote:
>  
> >  
> > 
> > 
> >  On 5/29/25 11:26, David McMackins II wrote:
> > > >    We have an SS1 running on exhibit at LSSM.  The next time
> > > > I'm over
> > > > there (which may be tonight) I'll start it up and see what
> > > > revision of
> > > > OBP that machine has, and if it's 1.x, I'll read the EPROM for
> > > > you.
> > >  
> > >  Wonderful! I would kindly request on behalf of others that you
> > > dump the
> > >  EPROM even if it is a different 2.x version, because 2.9 is the
> > > only
> > >  one that seems to be available on the web. These old boot images
> > > seem
> > >  to be at risk of becoming lost media. I'm happy to upload it to
> > > the
> > >  Internet Archive if you don't want to do that yourself. :)
> > 
> >    I had a few minutes so I ran over to the museum. (it's down the 
> > street from where I work)  The SPARCstation-1 on exhibit there is 
> > actually an SS1+ with an SS1 top cover, which annoyed me a bit; I'm
> > going to have to have a little chat with the guy who built that
> > exhibit. 
> >   I'll change it out at some point.
> > 
> >    But either way, it has OBP v1.3.  I should be able to open up
> > that 
> > machine and read the EPROM this weekend.  But something from a
> > "real" 
> > SS1 will take me a bit longer.
> > 
> >             -Dave
> > 
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