[rescue] SPARCstation 1 boot woes

Tue Nov 4 05:44:12 UTC 2025

I wrote

> So I guess I'm going to go bring home some _other_ SLC/ELC boards.
> [...]

I brought home four more of them today.

I suspect some of my failures yesterday - not all; the exploding cap I
cannot blame on this! - were due to my forgetting that they need parity
RAM.  I found notes which say that the SLC requires 36-bit RAM whereas
the ELC can get by with 33-bit and might even work with 32-bit.

I seem to have misplaced some of the machines.  In particular, I can
find only four of the six I should have.  In particular, one of the
ones that's gone missing is the one with the exploded cap.

However, of immediate relevance to this thread, I did find 8M of 36-bit
RAM and got one of the SLCs booting diskless.  And the diskless boot
setup works just fine for it.  This transcript picks up with the reset
after I've set the MAC address with mkpl:

	ok reset
	PROM Checksum test
	Context Reg Test
	Segment Map Test
	Sizing Memory
	Page Map Test
	Page Map Test
	Memory Test
	Mapping Interrupt & Memory Error Regs
	Probing Memory Bank #: 1 2 3 4 5 
	Initializing Auxiliary Register
	Installing Timer Interrupt Handler
	Timing CPU Clock Speed
	Reset/Initialize Keyboard
	Initializing Video
	Probing SBus Slot #: 0 1 2 3 
	Setting up Console Parameters
	SPARCstation SLC, No keyboard.
	ROM Rev. 1.4, 8 MB memory installed, Serial #12648430.
	Ethernet address 8:0:20:c0:ff:ee, Host ID: 54c0ffee.

	Reset/Initialize SCSI Adapter
	Enabling Interrupts
	Testing
	Testing audio chip; listen for a beep
	Synchronous Error Reg Test
	Synchronous Virtual Address Reg Test
	Asynchronous Error Reg Test
	Asynchronous Virtual Address Reg Test
	System Enable Reg Test
	Memory Test
	Cache Tag Memory Test
	Cache Data Memory Test
	Testing Complete
	Turning on Cache
	Probing Memory Bank #: 1 2 3 4 5 
	Scrub Memory and Set Mappings 
	Booting from: le(0,0,0)netbsd 
	13200 >> NetBSD/sparc Secondary Boot, Revision 1.9
	>> (mouse at SPARC.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA, Sat Feb 16 01:55:51 EST 2002)
	Booting netbsd
	Using BOOTPARAMS protocol: ip address: 10.0.1.11, hostname: SPARC.Rodents-Montreal.ORG
	root addr=10.0.1.2 path=/nfs/sparc
	2283548+140888+277984 [68+134032+103229]=0x2ddd30
	[ preserving 237784 bytes of netbsd ELF symbol table ]
	console is ttya
	Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000
	    The NetBSD Foundation, Inc.  All rights reserved.
	Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
	    The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.

	NetBSD 1.4T (MOUSEGEN) #0: Thu Mar 20 10:06:00 EDT 2025
	    mouse at SPARC.Rodents-Montreal.ORG:/home/mouse/kbuild/MOUSEGEN
	total memory = 8112 KB
	avail memory = 4424 KB
	using 127 buffers containing 508 KB of memory
	struct nfsuid bloated (136 > 128)
	Try unionizing the nu_nickname and nu_flag fields
	bootpath: /sbus0/le0
	mainbus0 (root): Sun 4/20
	cpu0 at mainbus0: MB86900/1A or L64801 @ 20 MHz, WTL3170/2 FPU
	cpu0: 64K byte write-through, 16 bytes/line, sw flush: cache enabled
	memreg0 at mainbus0 ioaddr 0xf4000000
	clock0 at mainbus0 ioaddr 0xf2000000: mk48t02 (eeprom)
	timer0 at mainbus0 ioaddr 0xf3000000 ipl 10 delay constant 7
	auxreg0 at mainbus0 ioaddr 0xf7400000
	zs0 at mainbus0 ioaddr 0xf1000000 ipl 12 softpri 6
	zstty0 at zs0 channel 0 (console)
	zstty1 at zs0 channel 1
	zs1 at mainbus0 ioaddr 0xf0000000 ipl 12 softpri 6
	kmmux0 at zs1 channel 0 (1200 baud)
	kbd0 at kmmux0
	kbd1 at kmmux0
	kbd2 at kmmux0
	kmmux1 at zs1 channel 1 (1200 baud)
	ms0 at kmmux1
	ms1 at kmmux1
	ms2 at kmmux1
	fdc0 at mainbus0 ioaddr 0xf7200000 ipl 11 softpri 4: chip 82077
	fdc0: no drives attached
	audioamd0 at mainbus0 ioaddr 0xf7201000 ipl 13 softpri 4
	audio0 at audioamd0: full duplex
	sbus0 at mainbus0 ioaddr 0xf8000000: clock = 25 MHz
	dma0 at sbus0 slot 0 offset 0x400000: rev 1
	esp0 at sbus0 slot 0 offset 0x800000 level 3: ESP100, 25MHz, SCSI ID 7
	scsibus0 at esp0: 8 targets, 8 luns per target
	le0 at sbus0 slot 0 offset 0xc00000 level 5: address 08:00:20:c0:ff:ee
	le0: 8 receive buffers, 2 transmit buffers
	le0: supplying EUI64: 08:00:20:ff:fe:c0:ff:ee
	bwtwo0 at sbus0 slot 3 offset 0x0 level 7: SUNW,501-1455, 1152 x 900
	bwtwo0: attached to /dev/fb
	pseudo0 at mainbus0
	ed0 at pseudo0
	ed1 at pseudo0
	ed2 at pseudo0
	scsibus0: waiting 2 seconds for devices to settle...
	uksbattach: ndevs = 4
	root on le0
	mountroot: trying msdos...
	mountroot: trying cd9660...
	mountroot: trying lfs...
	mountroot: trying nfs...
	nfs_boot: trying RARP (and RPC/bootparam)
	nfs_boot: client_addr=10.0.1.11 (RARP from 10.0.1.2)
	nfs_boot: server_addr=10.0.1.2
	nfs_boot: hostname=SPARC.Rodents-Montreal.ORG
	nfs_boot: gateway=10.0.1.1
	nfs_boot: my_mask=255.255.255.0
	root on 10.0.1.2:/nfs/sparc
	root time: 0x69098126
	WARNING: bad date in battery clock -- CHECK AND RESET THE DATE!
	root file system type: nfs
	init: copying out path `/sbin/init' 11
	proc.5.rlimit.maxproc.soft: 80 -> 532
	proc.1.rlimit.maxproc.soft: 80 -> 532
	proc.5.rlimit.descriptors.soft: 64 -> 1772
	proc.1.rlimit.descriptors.soft: 64 -> 1772
	Automatic boot in progress: starting file system checks.
	/etc/rc.conf is not configured. Multiuser boot aborted.
	Enter pathname of shell or RETURN for sh: 

So, yes, it does boot on at least one sun4c machine.

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