Subject: Re: Here comes the Suns
To: None <Davyd.Norris@fcollins.com.au>
From: Gordon W. Ross <gwr@mc.com>
List: port-sun3
Date: 03/21/1996 11:12:06
> From: Davyd Norris <Davyd.Norris@fcollins.com.au>
> Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 18:30:45 +-1000
> First of all, let me say thank you to all the people who replied to my =
> mail - it's great to get so much friendly advice. I will
> no doubt be talking to some or all of you *very* soon now :) about =
> setting these things up.
Always nice to see new people getting interested. I'm not sure if
anyone has mentioned it to you, but in the future, you should ask
questions about Sun3-specific things on port-sun3@netbsd.org (the
folks on current-users may not care about old Sun3 machines 8^)
> No RAM but 24 slots in banks of 4 - these are marked with $M,*m etc. and =
> jumpers corresponding, as well as EXTHDX(??) and HIRES
You need to set the 4M,8M,... jumpers according to the amount of
RAM you have installed (I guess you may have figured that out).
> Graphics card on top of main board above SCSI-I external connector with =
> S B G R
> Card has following markings:
> 3/60 Color Frame Buffer - PCB etched
> -06 REV 50 - written in black
> Ramdac has:
> Bt458KG110
> RAMDAC
> 98 8752 B
That is PROBABLY just a CG4 board (8-bit, not 24-bit).
> Now the hairy bit. I put 8x1Meg SIMMs from a PC into the box. These =
> looked two different types in 4x2 lots, so I grouped them. Does
> parity count on the Suns? I plugged everything in and put a t-piece =
Yes, you need "One meg. by 9, 100 nS or better."
Install them starting closest to the connector pannel.
> terminator on the Ethernet, stood back and fired up. NADA. Except
> for a fan. I half expected *some* screen activity but I don't know if I =
> got the sync line on the right connector, or the switches right. I also
> noticed some diagnostic leds on the back, and a switch that can be set =
> to norm or diag, so I played with that, but the LEDs do the same
> thing each way. They seem to be counting singly from right to left, =
> then the first (left) led and the last three stay on.
If you set the switch in Diag mode, you will need to connect a terminal
to the "ttya" port at 9600 BPS. (I think ttyb at 1200 works too.)
> My question is: any ideas? Is this one broken? Does anyone know the =
> diagnostic led sequence?
Yes. I've attached the LED decoding info below.
> My other question is: Can I set up my existing -current x86 box as a =
> bootp server, and drop a Sun3 NetBSD kernel onto it, and then
> get the x86 box to serve it up to the Sun to see if it will boot? =
> Apparently it has boot PROMS in the I/F.
Yes, you can netboot from an x86 box if the server runs
bootparamd (not the same as bootp) and NFS.
The installation notes found in this file should help...
ftp.netbsd.org:/pub/NetBSD-1.1/sun3/install/INSTALL.txt
Gordon
Sun3/60 Self-test LED codes
Note: The LED displays the MSB nearest the
keyboard connector (normal way).
7_LEDs_1 Test currently running
11111111 Reset (all on)
00000000 Test 0: CPU to SCC path
00000001 Test 1: PROM checksum
00000010 Test 2: (?)
00000011 Test 3: Context register
00000100 Test 4: Segmap RAM r/w
00000101 Test 5: Segmap RAM addr
00000110 Test 6: Pagemap RAM
00000111 Test 7: Memory data path
00001000 Test 8: Bus error detection
00001001 Test 9: Interrupts work?
00001010 Test 10: TOD clock interrupt
00001011 Test 11: MMU protection/status
00001100 Test 12: (?)
00001101 Test 13: (?)
00001110 Test 14: parity error (#1)
00001111 Test 15: parity error (#2)
00010000 Test 16: memory tests
The following bits may be OR'ed into the values above:
10000000 Self-tests have found an error
01000000 An Exception Class error occurred
00100000 (Blinking) Self-tests done, booting
Sun3/50 Self-test LED codes
Note: The LED displays the LSB nearest the
keyboard connector (bass-ackwards).
7_LEDs_1 Test currently running
11111111 Reset (all on)
00000000 Test 0: CPU to SCC path
00000001 Test 1: PROM checksum
00000010 Test 2: (?)
00000011 Test 3: Context register
00000100 Test 4: Segmap RAM r/w
00000101 Test 5: Segmap RAM addr
00000110 Test 6: Pagemap RAM
00000111 Test 7: Memory data path
00001000 Test 8: Bus error detection
00001001 Test 9: Interrupts work?
00001010 Test 10: MMU read access
00001011 Test 11: MMU write access
00001100 Test 12: write invalid page
00001101 Test 13: write protected page
00001110 Test 14: parity error (#1)
00001111 Test 15: parity error (#2)
00010000 Test 16: memory tests
The following bits may be OR'ed into the values above:
10000000 Self-tests have found an error
01000000 An Exception Class error occurred
00100000 (Blinking) Self-tests done, booting