On Thu, 4 Oct 2001, Jason R Thorpe wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 04, 2001 at 05:43:48PM -0700, B. James Phillippe wrote:
>
>  > Alpha on which I also plan to install NetBSD.  It's currently running NT4
>  > and has (obviously) the ARC console.  My first step is to install the
>  > latest version of SRM for this thing, but I need to know which firmware to
>  > use first.
>
> Does AlphaBIOS shed any light as to the name of the system?
...
> This sounds a lot like an AlphaPC 164LX.  Possibly an AlphaPC 164 (no
> LX).  Definitely not an EB164 -- those didn't have PCI IDE.

I had a strong feeling this was a PC164, based on the fine documentation on
www.netbsd.org.  The (quick!) responses from others on this list gave me
enough confidence to go for it.  I formatted a fresh disk from Linux
(fdformat; mkdosfs) and installed pc164srm.rom and fwupdate.exe from the
DEC site.  Then choose "upgrade firmware" from the AlphaBIOS window, and
presto, I am now running SRM v5.5-1 Jul 14 1999 on this system, which is
reporting itself as Aspen Systems Durango Workstation.  Next on the list is
to get a supported NIC (I'm assuming any DECchip 21X4X will do) and a
high-end SRM-supported 64bit SCSI board and some big drives.  I asked
advice on the SCSI board for a similar system (a PC164SX); now I'm
wondering the same thing about this board.  BTW, there is a 32bit NCR
53c875 in there now.

Thanks so much to all the excellent people on this list, you are all very
helpful!

-bp
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