[rescue] SPARCstation 1 boot woes

[David McMackins II]

I'm certainly interested in your offer for a 1.4T netboot setup! It's
not what I want to run in the end but the goal right now is to try a
known good setup just to see if this machine is actually capable of
booting an OS, and I might be able to test other stuff after booting.

> Indeed.  I'm not sure how much point there is in trying to boot an OS
> until it passes POST.

Just for the sake of refreshing context, I have both OBP versions 1.0
and 2.9. 1.0 is failing POST, but 2.9 appears fully functional except
for this issue with booting. The failed POST definitely betrays some
sort of hardware issue, but I'm grasping at straws for anything which
might reveal more info about what that actually could be. The fact that
2.9 can get so close (including passing all its own diagnostic tests)
is very troubling.

-- 
Regards,

David E. McMackins II
www.mcmackins.org

On Mon, 2025-10-20 at 19:50 -0400, Mouse via rescue wrote:
> > If you have a NetBSD/sparc system running in qemu or something, you
> > should b$
> 
> > Unfortunately it has been many years since I last typed 'make
> > world' so I ca$
> 
> Maybe.
> 
> I do not routinely run NetBSD/sparc later than 1.4T, but I certainly
> can set up a 4.0.1 or 5.2 system and then give you the boot.net and
> root tarball from the resulting system - and I _easily_ can for
> 1.4T,p
> at least my somwhat mutant 1.4T.  My experience is that NetBSD/sparc
> Just Works on the whole range of 32-bit SPARCs, but that experience
> is
> limited to, mostly, 1.4T; while it would surprise me, it could be
> that
> one or more of 4.0.1, 5.2, 10.*, or -current won't run on v7 CPUs out
> of the box.
> 
> However, I have let go of most of my sun4c machines, so it would be a
> bit difficult for me to test.  I do have some SLC/ELC boards, but
> none
> of them set up to run; setting one up would be simple, but, with all
> the other things going on in my life, not very easy at present.
> 
> As I said, I can certainly fix you up with a (mutant) 1.4T netboot
> boot.net and root tarball.  That netboot setup has worked for me in
> the
> past on sun4c machines; I'd expect it to work on a 1, provided the
> hardware is in good shape.  (Even if you don't want to run 1.4T, it
> might be worth trying as a diagnostic measure.)
> 
> > > The failed POST (or at least that's all we can assume) on OBP 1.0
> > > is
> > > also concerning as others have mentioned.
> 
> Indeed.  I'm not sure how much point there is in trying to boot an OS
> until it passes POST.
> 
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