[rescue] SPARCstation 1 boot woes (David McMackins II)

Fri May 30 14:36:24 EDT 2025

Hi David

It might have been mentioned previously, but its worth nothing that the SS1 can take a very long time to boot when in diagnostic mode.

This has caught me out a few times in the past when the MB just seems to be dead. 

I always leave these earlier machines for half an hour before deciding they are dead.

Also with the SS1, I generally fix the NVRAM chip with the usual 'flying lead and button cell' fix. This can be handy as you can remove the button cell for a full reset of the NVRAM. I usually leave it for an hour or so just to be sure. 

Last but not least - I remove all the 'spare' RAM and any SBUS cards when debugging SS motherboards. Just put the minimum 4 SIMMs in position. This helps to speed up the boot.

I've lost count of the number of SS motherboards that seem completely dead, and then spring back into life so dont give up!

- Ian

> On 30 May 2025, at 17:00, rescue-request at sunhelp.org wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
> 
>   1. Re: SPARCstation 1 boot woes (David McMackins II)
>   2. Re: SPARCstation 1 boot woes (Ethan Hawke)
>   3. Re: SPARCstation 1 boot woes (Dave McGuire)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 29 May 2025 19:02:48 -0500
> From: David McMackins II <contact at mcmackins.org>
> To: The Rescue List <rescue at sunhelp.org>
> Subject: Re: [rescue] SPARCstation 1 boot woes
> Message-ID:
> 	<4cf65b5d64a5c9c9ea6df43332429d2bce8de31f.camel at mcmackins.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
> 
>>  It's definitely v1.0.  I set up MAME to emulate a 4/60 with the
>> above-mentioned ROM, it came up fine, and the banner said 1.0.  I
>> think you're probably ok to try this with your last chip.
> 
> So a little while ago I got out my ROM programmer (whose box in which I
> also store my PROMs) and noticed that I in fact had two! So I went
> ahead and programmed one with that image I found. Unfortunately, this
> did not turn out as I'd hoped.
> 
> Despite having already programmed the NVRAM, I saw a message on the
> serial line that the checksum was bad and that it was resetting to
> default values, after which it never seemed to do anything else. I then
> decided to try removing the battery to erase it and try again. The same
> thing happened, but this time I got a message about starting the RTC as
> well.
> 
> At this point, upon powering up the machine, nothing seems to happen
> and I get no messages on the serial line. Occasionally, I will see the
> connected monitor display a message that it's going into power-saving
> mode, which indicates that it got just a flicker of signal. I did also
> try disconnecting the keyboard in case there were messages it was
> trying to display on screen. I should point out that on the 2.9 ROM, I
> was getting a picture on the screen and able to interact from the
> keyboard.
> 
> I suppose it's possible that after those initial messages, it's still
> outputting over serial but at a different data rate for some reason,
> but that seems unlikely to me. This is beginning to seem more like a
> hardware issue after all.
> 
> -- 
> Regards,
> 
> David E. McMackins II
> www.mcmackins.org
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 30 May 2025 10:37:14 +1000
> From: Ethan Hawke <ehawk at ember.systems>
> To: The Rescue List <rescue at sunhelp.org>
> Subject: Re: [rescue] SPARCstation 1 boot woes
> Message-ID: <a7ac9c35-81cc-47ea-97c1-9f25ffcb2c33 at ember.systems>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
> 
> There is indeed, I created just such a tool for someone else,
> 
> https://ember.systems/eprom_dumpv2.b
> 
> This will dump the (sun4c/sun4m/sun4d/sun4e) PROM over XMODEM.
> 
> You can boot the file over TFTP or even over serial (with dlbin).
> 
> Cheers,
> Ethan
> 
> On 5/30/25 05:27, 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 <https://www.linkedin.com/in/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
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
>>> New Kensington, PA
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> rescue list - http://sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue_sunhelp.org
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> rescue list -http://sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue_sunhelp.org
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> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Thu, 29 May 2025 21:13:06 -0400
> From: Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com>
> To: The Rescue List <rescue at sunhelp.org>
> Subject: Re: [rescue] SPARCstation 1 boot woes
> Message-ID: <307c9369-0736-41ff-9567-eac12c830e44 at neurotica.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
> 
> 
>   Oh!  That's handy.  That would be interesting to read; do you plan to 
> release the source code?
> 
>          -Dave
> 
> On 5/29/25 20:37, Ethan Hawke via rescue wrote:
>> There is indeed, I created just such a tool for someone else,
>> 
>> https://ember.systems/eprom_dumpv2.b
>> 
>> This will dump the (sun4c/sun4m/sun4d/sun4e) PROM over XMODEM.
>> 
>> You can boot the file over TFTP or even over serial (with dlbin).
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Ethan
>> 
>> On 5/30/25 05:27, 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 <https://www.linkedin.com/in/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
>>>> 
>>>> -- 
>>>> Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
>>>> New Kensington, PA
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> rescue list - http://sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue_sunhelp.org
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> rescue list -http://sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue_sunhelp.org
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> rescue list - http://sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue_sunhelp.org
> 
> 
> -- 
> Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
> New Kensington, PA
> 
> 
> 
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> End of rescue Digest, Vol 270, Issue 19
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