Hm that is odd. Does typing via serial work in OBP?It is not required to set anything in OBP to run machine with a serial. If the system wasn't set to a strange setting bevor. Just unplug everything expect serial, power coord and (optional) network cable. 9600-8N1 is the default value, if nothing was changed in the OBP. If typing over serial doesn't work try to turn hardware flow control on or off. I can't remember right now if this can be jumpered on Blade but could be an issue. Also consider using NetBSD 5.0 RC3, even if not a stable release, it is a good option for a Blade 1x0 because of bug(s) in the hardware of the acer ide controller. You should already received alot of "lost interrupt" messages, which will get even worst on an hdd-installed system. (including a possibility of a freeze). If I get you right, you already try to install NetBSD via CD? Therefore this could already trigger the described problem. You could also try the dark art of netbooting, it is quiet easy if you done this bevor on other systems. If not here is a good - sadly a bit dusty - documentation: http://www.netbsd.org/docs/network/netboot/intro.sun.ofw.html
Best Regards Stephan
Thanks for the suggestion. I got the serial interface working, but am
halted at approximately the same spot.
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aceride0:0:0: lost interrupt
type: ata tc_bcount: 512 tc_skip: 0
aceride0:0:0: lost interrupt
type: ata tc_bcount: 0 tc_skip: 0
FATAL: boot device not found, check your firmware settings!
root on md0a dumps on md0b
root file system type: ffs
WARNING: clock gained 188 days
WARNING: CHECK AND RESET THE DATE!
erase ^?, werase
----
Probably still sounds like a dumb question, but nothing I press here
gets me any further. Is this now a serial problem? Perhaps I have the
settings wrong, I used 9600/N/8/1.
I'm not new to *nix, but as I mentioned, I'm new to NetBSD - and I'm
new to Sparc also. I used some setenv settings in the PROM to get the
system to run i/o through ttya, and set the boot sequence to "cdrom
disk net". Is there something else I'm missing?
Thanks again, for your help and patience.
/Scott