We have two of DEC 3000/500 systems, one was setup to use the serial console
(alpha1), while the other uses the graphics console (alpha2).

The problem we are having is alpha1 will not netboot so that we can upgrade
the firmware.

>>> boot ez0

 INIT-S-CPU
 AUDIT_BOOT_START...
 AUDIT_BOOT_REQ
 Host Server IP address is 192.168.120.3
 AUDIT_BSERVER_FOUND

 84 FAIL


But, alpha2 does netboot and we were able to update its firmware.  So we
decided to use alpha2 as our NetBSD server.

When we netboot alpha2, it would load the kernel and then switches to the
serial console.  We hooked up a Digital VT220 dum terminal (setup as VT100,
8N1) to alpha2's serial port (this dum terminal does work on alpha1).  We
then changed switch S3 on the back of alpha1 to serial console.  Now when we
netboot,  the boot process is placed onto the serial console, instead of the
graphic console.  The proccess continues until it reaches the check for
rc_configured in rc:

Enter pathname of shell or RETURN for sh:

When we press RETURN on the serial console, nothing happens.  It seems as if
it is ignoring the keyboard.

NOTE:  We also can't use the serial console before it boots either, we had
to set the system to auto boot from the graphic console.

Also, if we remove the graphic consoles keyboard from alpha2 and boot the
system, it halts with the following error on the serial console.

DEC 3000 - M500
Digital Equipment Corporation
System conducting power up tests
-------------------------------------------------------

Devnam       Devstats
--------     --------
     CPU     OK KN15-AA -V7.0-S885-I21F-sV1.0-DECchip 21064 P3.0
     OSC     150 MHz
    ASIC     OK
     MEM     OK 128M
     NVR     OK
     CXT     OK
     SCC     ?? 004 0060 ptr(0) = Not Present kybd(2) = Not Present
      NI     OK Ethernet Address: 08-00-2B-32-C4-4A , TENBT
    SCSI     OK
    ISDN     OK
     TC4     OK - KZTSA-AA
     TC1     OK - IPI-120T
-------------------------------------------------------
System power up tests detected error(s).
See your system documentation for more information.

>>>

Any ideals as to how we can get the serial console working on alpha2?

Thanks,

Scot