[rescue] SPARCstation 1 boot woes

Mon Oct 20 18:05:05 UTC 2025

It was technically mentioned in my last message but perhaps wasn't
obvious: I have already attempted netbooting NetBSD.

When I issue the command to boot from network, I can see it counting
the size of the boot program, and then I get the same "Illegal
instruction" once it's finished transferring.

I did suspect that it could be a SPARC ISA version compatibility issue
with NetBSD, and that's why I was seeking known good media for SunOS
which is certainly compatible (or at least the right versions are),
including a netboot program/tree.

The failed POST (or at least that's all we can assume) on OBP 1.0 is
also concerning as others have mentioned. Is there any good starting
point for diagnosing that issue? I have a 70MHz oscilloscope if I need
to go that far. No logic analyzer though.

-- 
Regards,

David E. McMackins II
www.mcmackins.org

On Mon, 2025-10-20 at 16:30 +0000, Andrew Jones wrote:
> I would not count on a 30 year old floppy drive to work properly
> unless extensively tested.   They're fiddly beasts, and decades on
> the shelf is unkind to rubber, lubricants, etc
> 
> Knowing this is an attempt at a floppy boot, "Illegal instruction"
> sure sounds like corruption to me.
> 
> (My only other thought: those early SPARCs don't have hardware
> multiply/divide, but NetBSD is pretty careful about that to retain
> compatibility.  I really doubt this is a v7 vs v8 problem.)
> 
> I have always netbooted old SPARC systems.   It is very easy to do,
> with one proviso: systems with the old AMD Lance ethernet sometimes
> have trouble with modern micro-switched networks.   It works fine
> after the OS boots, but the firmware does not consistently behave
> well.   
> 
> 
> 
> On Saturday, October 18th, 2025 at 23:46, David McMackins II via
> rescue <rescue at sunhelp.org> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > 
> > Hey, thanks for the info!
> > 
> > I realize that not all the original context was included from
> > earlier
> > in this thread. The short version is that I was originally on OBP
> > 2.9
> > which got a lot further, up to the point of attempting to boot, but
> > I
> > always got "Illegal instruction" after the boot program is loaded
> > from
> > any medium (including network).
> > 
> > My test OS has been NetBSD, but I did try booting SunOS 3 from
> > floppy
> > created using dd on Linux.
> > 
> > If it's a hardware issue, I'm really at a loss as to what I could
> > check
> > next.
> > 
> > --
> > Regards,
> > 
> > David E. McMackins II
> > www.mcmackins.org
> > 
> > On Sat, 2025-10-18 at 16:32 -0700, Steve Rikli wrote:
> > 
> > > Do you have a known-good floppy img file for the SunOS boot
> > > diskette?
> > > 
> > > If yes, then you should just be able to use 'dd' to do the job
> > > afaik,
> > > from Linux, BSD, etc.
> > > 
> > > Way back in 2001 I archived some notes about Solaris floppies
> > > from
> > > this page:
> > > http://soldc.sun.com/support/drivers/copytodisk.html
> > > 
> > > maybe you can find the original on wayback machine or something,
> > > but
> > > in
> > > a nutshell, the instructions amount to:
> > > 
> > > dd if=<floppy image filename> of=<floppy drive device name>
> > > 
> > > The Solaris-specific notes also mentioned using "bs=1440k" as an
> > > additional arg to 'dd' command, running 'volcheck', 'eject
> > > floppy0'
> > > etc., but if you're doing it on Linux then that stuff doesn't
> > > apply.
> > > 
> > > IIRC the last time I installed SunOS (not Solaris) it was 4.1.3
> > > from
> > > CD,
> > > so I'm not much help with netbooting it -- sorry.
> > > 
> > > Nowdays if I still had SPARC gear I'd try NetBSD, at least as a
> > > troubleshooting step. There are install ISO images, and netboot
> > > notes
> > > if
> > > you can setup your own server for DHCP, tftpd, etc. ISO is
> > > simpler
> > > but
> > > obviously you need a SCSI CD player on your SPARC for that
> > > method.
> > > :-)
> > > 
> > > https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/sparc/
> > > 
> > > From you symptoms description though, I'd be inclined to suspect
> > > the
> > > hardware like you were earlier. That is, if the system goes
> > > unresponsive
> > > shortly after the power on banner, it doesn't sound like it's
> > > getting
> > > as
> > > far as running any OS bits (whether SunOS or other).
> > > 
> > > Still, trying other (net)boot media is worth a shot; if nothing
> > > else
> > > it
> > > may point you in the direction of what else is wrong.
> > > 
> > > Cheers,
> > > sr.
> > > 
> > > On Sat, Oct 18, 2025 at 05:25:01PM -0500, David McMackins II via
> > > rescue wrote:
> > > 
> > > > Resurrecting this thread as I've done just a bit more looking
> > > > today. I
> > > > remembered that the OBP has diagnostics to run, so I tried that
> > > > and
> > > > found that all tests passed (except ones I expected to fail
> > > > like
> > > > the
> > > > keyboard and network which weren't connected at the time).
> > > > 
> > > > I'm beginning to wonder if this system actually is fine and all
> > > > my
> > > > woes
> > > > are on the software side. My trouble is I don't have a known
> > > > good
> > > > SunOS
> > > > boot diskette, so I can't tell if I'm doing anything wrong when
> > > > making
> > > > one.
> > > > 
> > > > Does anyone have a good source of info for creating a boot
> > > > diskette
> > > > from Linux? I would also accept instructions for setting up
> > > > SunOS
> > > > netboot if there were also directions for acquiring the
> > > > necessary
> > > > files.
> > > > 
> > > > On Wed, 2025-06-04 at 08:48 -0500, David McMackins II wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > > Update: the flicker of video signal got me thinking that
> > > > > maybe
> > > > > there
> > > > > was some sort of issue initializing the video card, so I
> > > > > tried
> > > > > removing it. This granted some progress: the 1.0 ROM now
> > > > > prints
> > > > > the
> > > > > machine info header over the serial line (which it was not
> > > > > doing
> > > > > before). However, after a couple of seconds, I see "Testi"
> > > > > before
> > > > > the system becomes unresponsive.
> > > > > 
> > > > > I thought this might be a RAM issue, so I tried swapping out
> > > > > some
> > > > > SIMMs to no avail. For science I also tried reinstalling the
> > > > > 2.9
> > > > > ROM
> > > > > in case that too was having issues with the video card, but
> > > > > it
> > > > > behaved the same as before.
> > 
> > 
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