Re: Hardware or software?

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

> I don't know if my mailer is crazy or not, but this message popped up
> as new but it appears one year old.

It is old.  I have no idea why your software decided to present it to
you now.

> To determine HW or SW problem it could be useful to boot a
> pre-installed disk if you have another 32bit HP-PA installed.

I didn't.  I now semi-do - see below.

> I think it is suspicious that all your registers are 0 and all else
> following too.  I would guess an error in HW detection or incomplete
> support?

I agree - though I'd also add "broken HW" as a possible cause.

I have made no real progress with the 712.  But I did recently find
another hp700 in storage, a VISUALIZE B180L, and pulled that out.

It booted to single-user and runs there apparently fine.  However,
according to the kernel build line, it was cross-built from another
machine of mine back in 2016.  I have been unable to cross-build a
working system now; everything I've built recently has failed trying to
start /bin/sh.  Oddly, it runs /rescue/sh fine, leading me to suspect
something wrong with dynamic linking, but I haven't had the leisure to
track it down.  Curiously, even going clear back to the stock 5.2
sources, I don't get a working cross-build.  (I haven't asked for help
because this is all with my mutant 5.2.  If anyone _does_ have any
thoughts, I'd welcome them; I can fire it up again and give details of
the failure mode if anyone wants.)

The frustrating part is that, based on the date of the cross-build, I
feel reasonably confident it was built from my gitification of 5.2, so
I should have the source tree in question as one of my commits around
that time.  But I've been unable to find one that cross-builds and
works.  (This is part of why I want to automate tests, so I can connect
it up and let it crunch away for however long it takes, cross-building
from various commits and testing, all without human attention.)

I think I know where the 712 is, and I may try booting it from the disk
that works on the B180L - I have two bootable copies of that and
another copy on my main house backup machine.  I'll report back if/when
I have any word.  I've been building tools - for example, I have
developed a program which can drive a serial line to do things like
test-boot the B180L, so I should be able to completely automate testing
cross-builds.  The resource in shortest supply at the moment, however,
is round tuits.

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