Status of port-newsmips?

Post by Mauricio
This saturday I was given*three* NWS-3710 machines. I would
love to have at least one running netbsd. How far is it running?

NWS-3710 could run NetBSD.
Since the machine have not been tested it might have some problems,
but the fixes should be trivial.
(Anyway you have to use serial console, though.)

Post by Mauricio
Also, how to install the OS in the machine? I went to
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/newsmips/ and did not find much info.

You can try the NetBSD 1.6_RC3 snapshot.
See the install note:
ftp://releng.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/200209060000/newsmips/INSTALL.html
and try boot floppy:
ftp://releng.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/200209060000/newsmips/installation/floppy/

(Yes, more things should be documented in the install notes.
Any feedback is welcome :-)
---
Izumi Tsutsui
***@ceres.dti.ne.jp

Mauricio

2002-09-08 14:55:22 UTC

Post by Mauricio
This saturday I was given*three* NWS-3710 machines. I would
love to have at least one running netbsd. How far is it running?

NWS-3710 could run NetBSD.
Since the machine have not been tested it might have some problems,
but the fixes should be trivial.
(Anyway you have to use serial console, though.)

Post by Mauricio
Also, how to install the OS in the machine? I went to
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/newsmips/ and did not find much info.

You can try the NetBSD 1.6_RC3 snapshot.
ftp://releng.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/200209060000/newsmips/INSTALL.html
ftp://releng.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/200209060000/newsmips/installation/floppy/
(Yes, more things should be documented in the install notes.
Any feedback is welcome :-)
---
Izumi Tsutsui

Hello there!

I just looked at the install info. It sounds fairly
complete. Things I would like to be added are stuff someone like me,
who has never used a NEWS machine before (think Homer Simpson), would
appreciate:

o How to figure out the machine configuration (think "cnfg"
in a dec and scsi-info in sub) without opening the case and counting
memory chips and HD?
o From what I saw in the case (from outside), it has an empty
5 1/4 bay. Could I slap in it a CDROM drive? If so, what are its
requirements (ex: SCSI with 512byte sectors)?
o All three machines have a video board on them. Do I have
to remove it to use the console? Also, is it a prefered serial port
for console?
o What kind of memory does this machine use and what is its capacity?

Thanks for any help! I may try to install the OS later on today. If
I do it, I will keep you posted on my findings and problems. =)

Izumi Tsutsui

2002-09-09 13:09:58 UTC

Post by Mauricio
o How to figure out the machine configuration (think "cnfg"
in a dec and scsi-info in sub) without opening the case and counting
memory chips and HD?

Amount of Memory should be counted by PROM monitor on boot,
but I don't think NEWS PROM has scsi-info like commands.
"help" command on the monitor might help.

Post by Mauricio
o From what I saw in the case (from outside), it has an empty
5 1/4 bay. Could I slap in it a CDROM drive? If so, what are its
requirements (ex: SCSI with 512byte sectors)?

Original 3720 had a QIC tape drive in it,
but you could put any SCSI devices instead.
You could use both 512byte and 2048byte CD-ROM drives.
(It's not hardware requirements, but OS related.)

Post by Mauricio
o All three machines have a video board on them. Do I have
to remove it to use the console? Also, is it a prefered serial port
for console?

You don't have to remove framebuffers.
Just set DIPswitches to use serial console.
See news68k FAQ:
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/news68k/faq.html#serial_console
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/news68k/faq.html#dip_sw
The FAQ is written for news68k, but some items
could be applicable on newsmips, too.

Post by Mauricio
o What kind of memory does this machine use and what is its capacity?

For NWS-34xx and NWS-37xx machines, 30pin 4Mbyte SIMM with parity
can be used.
---
Izumi Tsutsui
***@ceres.dti.ne.jp

Mauricio

2002-09-10 12:10:52 UTC

Post by Mauricio
o How to figure out the machine configuration (think "cnfg"
in a dec and scsi-info in sub) without opening the case and counting
memory chips and HD?

Amount of Memory should be counted by PROM monitor on boot,
but I don't think NEWS PROM has scsi-info like commands.
"help" command on the monitor might help.

Thanks for the info. As soon as I am able to get a prompt I
shall try that. =)

Post by Mauricio
o From what I saw in the case (from outside), it has an empty
5 1/4 bay. Could I slap in it a CDROM drive? If so, what are its
requirements (ex: SCSI with 512byte sectors)?

Original 3720 had a QIC tape drive in it,
but you could put any SCSI devices instead.
You could use both 512byte and 2048byte CD-ROM drives.
(It's not hardware requirements, but OS related.)

Can the machine boot out of a CDROM?

Post by Mauricio
o All three machines have a video board on them. Do I have
to remove it to use the console? Also, is it a prefered serial port
for console?

You don't have to remove framebuffers.
Just set DIPswitches to use serial console.
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/news68k/faq.html#serial_console
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/news68k/faq.html#dip_sw
The FAQ is written for news68k, but some items
could be applicable on newsmips, too.

I've tried configuring its jumpers (Ex: setting jumpers 1 to
3 to off, which should mean use serial port according tot he FAQ),
then connected a serial cable between my computer and the NEWS box
and nothing happened. I also tried adding a null modem and still
had the same result. =(

Post by Mauricio
o What kind of memory does this machine use and what is its capacity?

For NWS-34xx and NWS-37xx machines, 30pin 4Mbyte SIMM with parity
can be used.
---

Cool! I will be looking forwards to have the machine alive.
When I do, I shall call it karas after Dr. Gori's (if you have never
seen Spectreman, you may not know who they are) henchman.

Izumi Tsutsui

2002-09-10 15:04:19 UTC

Post by Mauricio
Can the machine boot out of a CDROM?

Probably not, but booting from floppy is enough to install.
(but it's better to clean up floppy drives before boot ;-)

Post by Mauricio
I've tried configuring its jumpers (Ex: setting jumpers 1 to
3 to off, which should mean use serial port according tot he FAQ),
then connected a serial cable between my computer and the NEWS box
and nothing happened. I also tried adding a null modem and still
had the same result. =(

Maybe NVRAM in your machines is dead. If so, you can try the same
procedure with news68k:
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/news68k/faq.html#dead_nvram
---
Izumi Tsutsui
***@ceres.dti.ne.jp

Mauricio

2002-09-14 04:12:53 UTC

TESTING MAIN MEMORY ......... FROM 0xa0000000 THROUGH 0xa0bf7fff
--------> This means that it has 12MB of RAM, right?

Yes. The last some kbytes are used by the PROM monitor.
Maybe it has twelve 1MB SIMMs, and you can put 4MB SIMMs instead
up to 64Mbytes. My NWS-3470D has 64M RAM.

Cool. Time for some SIMM hunting then =)

PHASE 2: FDC AND FDD CHECK
--------> All that means it does not have a floppy in the drive, right?

Hmm, by default, internal floppy drive should be 3.5" bay
at right side. If it is not there, it might be removed, unfortunately.

Actually, the drive is there. I was just wondering if the
message indicated whether the drive was empty (no floppy in the
drive).

NEWS> revarp
Server not respond.
--------> This means the machine is set up to get its IP address from
a server, right?

Maybe. But IIRC NEWS machines use the "rd (remote disk)" protocol
to load kernel, and it is not supported by NetBSD.

Ok. I was curious about whether the machine was set up to
boot diskless or something like that.

NEWS> di
Tahoe disk label
a: 0 34200
b: 34200 200000
c: 0 586764
d: 234201 320000
e: 554202 32562
f: 327582 259182
g: 327582 129591
h: 457173 129591
--------> This is the hard drive, right? Can I assume the
partitions labels are similar to other BSD unixes (c is the entire
disk, b is swap, and so on)? Also, what is the unit used in each
column? Bytes?

NEWS-OS 4.x is completely derived from 4.3BSD, so it should be
disklabel of the internal SCSI drive. The unit would be sector,
which should be 512bytes.

Thanks

NEWS> vers
SONY NET WORK STATION R3000 Monitor Release 2.0A
Model NWS-3710, Machine ID #30145, Ethernet address 08:00:46:00:79:e7
NEWS>
It seems karas is slowly on its way to come back to the world of
the living. =)

If your machine actually does not have floppy drive, you can
write boot.fs image into a SCSI drive and can boot NetBSD from it.

Well, it does have a floppy drive. So, I created a boot
floppy in my Sparc20 (after downloading the boot.fs you mentioned in
a previous message). This is how far it went:

NEWS> bo fh
NetBSD/newsmips Primary Boot
NetBSD/newsmips Secondary Boot, Revision 1.7
(***@tgm.daemon.org, Sat Sep 7 19:57:02 UTC 2002)
Booting fh(0,0,0)
3788624+127656=0x3bc394

and it just hang up on there. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Izumi Tsutsui

2002-09-14 11:47:55 UTC

Maybe it has twelve 1MB SIMMs, and you can put 4MB SIMMs instead
up to 64Mbytes. My NWS-3470D has 64M RAM.

Cool. Time for some SIMM hunting then =)

NWS-3xxx machines require SIMMs with parity.
But I'm not sure if three chip SIMM works or not.
(SIMMS with 9-chips should work, though)

Post by Mauricio
NEWS> bo fh
NetBSD/newsmips Primary Boot
NetBSD/newsmips Secondary Boot, Revision 1.7
Booting fh(0,0,0)
3788624+127656=0x3bc394
and it just hang up on there. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Hmm, if you got this even on serial consle, there are some problems
during initialization (for console or something).
Would you please try this image?
http://www.ceres.dti.ne.jp/~tsutsui/netbsd/boot-newsmips-1.6H.fs
The kernel in this image will call fb initialization only on NWS-3470D.
If this does not work, more work is needed..
---
Izumi Tsutsui
***@ceres.dti.ne.jp

Mauricio

2002-09-14 14:40:19 UTC

Maybe it has twelve 1MB SIMMs, and you can put 4MB SIMMs instead
up to 64Mbytes. My NWS-3470D has 64M RAM.

Cool. Time for some SIMM hunting then =)

NWS-3xxx machines require SIMMs with parity.
But I'm not sure if three chip SIMM works or not.
(SIMMS with 9-chips should work, though)

I think I should have plenty of those laying around =)

Ok. I just downloaded the file and am dumping it to the disk
in my Sparc 20 (solaris 2.6). Just to make sure I am not screwing
up, here is the commands I used:

# dd if=boot-newsmips-1.6H.fs bs=18k of=/dev/rdiskette
68+1 records in
68+1 records out
# eject floppy
#

Now, I am going to boot up the 3710 beast, jumpers set so only jumper
#6 is up (I assume that the machine can boot up in this mode if I
force it to do so):

*** Diagnostic mode ***

PHASE 1: D-RAM CELL TEST

TESTING MAIN MEMORY ......... FROM 0xa0000000 THROUGH 0xa0bf7fff
LONG WORD ACCESS ............ OK
HALF WORD ACCESS ............ OK
BYTE ACCESS ................. OK

PHASE 2: FDC AND FDD CHECK

SEND SPECIFY COMMAND ........ DONE
SET CTRL INTERNAL ........... DONE
SELECT ECMA FORMAT .......... DONE
TURN MOTOR ON ............... DONE
SENSE DEVICE ................ DONE
DRIVE STATUS ................ NOT READY
SENSE DEVICE ................ DONE
DRIVE STATUS ................ NOT READY
SENSE DEVICE ................ DONE
DRIVE STATUS ................ NOT READY
SENSE DEVICE ................ DONE
DRIVE STATUS ................ NOT READY
SENSE DEVICE ................ DONE
DRIVE STATUS ................ NOT READY

NEWS>

So, now I try to boot:

NEWS> bo fh
NetBSD/newsmips Primary Boot
NetBSD/newsmips Secondary Boot, Revision 1.7
(***@mirage, Sat Sep 14 18:20:02 JST 2002)
Booting fh(0,0,0)
3788720+128968=0x3bc914

Once again,t hat is as far as the machine went. =(

Izumi Tsutsui

2002-09-15 12:39:19 UTC

Post by Izumi Tsutsui
Would you please try this image?
http://www.ceres.dti.ne.jp/~tsutsui/netbsd/boot-newsmips-1.6H.fs
The kernel in this image will call fb initialization only on NWS-3470D.
If this does not work, more work is needed..

NEWS> bo fh
NetBSD/newsmips Primary Boot
NetBSD/newsmips Secondary Boot, Revision 1.7
Booting fh(0,0,0)
3788720+128968=0x3bc914
Once again,t hat is as far as the machine went. =(

Ugh.. then how about the next one?
http://www.ceres.dti.ne.jp/~tsutsui/netbsd/boot-newsmips-1.6H2.fs
All fb and kbd devices are disabled in this kernel.

If it doesn't work either, please try this old image:
http://www.ceres.dti.ne.jp/~tsutsui/netbsd/boot-newsmips-14L-nofb.fs.gz
There was a report it booted on NWS-3720 about three years ago.
---
Izumi Tsutsui
***@ceres.dti.ne.jp

Mauricio

2002-09-16 06:21:45 UTC

NEWS> bo fh
NetBSD/newsmips Primary Boot
NetBSD/newsmips Secondary Boot, Revision 1.7
Booting fh(0,0,0)
3788720+128968=0x3bc914
Once again,t hat is as far as the machine went. =(

Ugh.. then how about the next one?
http://www.ceres.dti.ne.jp/~tsutsui/netbsd/boot-newsmips-1.6H2.fs
All fb and kbd devices are disabled in this kernel.
http://www.ceres.dti.ne.jp/~tsutsui/netbsd/boot-newsmips-14L-nofb.fs.gz
There was a report it booted on NWS-3720 about three years ago.
---
Izumi Tsutsui

Hello there.

I have not tried them yet since I am now having problems
booting the machine to get to the NEWS> prompt. I did try the
routine to boot with dead NVRAM
(http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/news68k/faq.html#dead_nvram) but no
dice. So, I decided to open the beast, taking pictures as I go just
in case I want to write down a how-to.

What I found inside was 12 1MB SIMMs (and that the machine has some
36 slots; I wonder if I can put one 4MB SIMM on each slot. I did
find what seemed to be a jumper to go from 1M and 4M =)... and dust,
lots of it. Just to make me feel good, I will probably clean the
machine before trying again. At least I now have lots of pictures,
including of the NVRAM. =)

Mauricio

2002-09-18 05:44:15 UTC

NEWS> bo fh
NetBSD/newsmips Primary Boot
NetBSD/newsmips Secondary Boot, Revision 1.7
Booting fh(0,0,0)
3788720+128968=0x3bc914
Once again,t hat is as far as the machine went. =(

Hello there!

Here is an update of my boot kernel adventures. I have been
creating the boot disk in my Sparc 20 (Solaris 2.6). Today I decided
to go one boot file at a time:

<In the sparc 20 ----------------->
# ls -l
total 10034
-rw-rw-rw- 1 raub weirdos 105696 Sep 10 21:09 INSTALL.txt
-rw-rw-rw- 1 raub weirdos 1261568 Sep 14 10:29 boot-newsmips-1.6H.fs
-rw-rw-rw- 1 raub weirdos 1228800 Sep 15 10:13 boot-newsmips-1.6H2.fs
-rw-rw-rw- 1 raub weirdos 1231352 Sep 15 10:14 boot-newsmips-14L-nofb.fs
-rw-rw-rw- 1 raub weirdos 1261568 Sep 10 21:08 boot.fs
-rw-rw-rw- 1 root other 609 Sep 17 23:25 txt
# dd if=boot.fs bs=18k of=/dev/rfd0a
68+1 records in
68+1 records out
# eject floppy

<in the NEWS machine, karas ----------------->
Testing memories: done.
12288K bytes available, 32K bytes reserved.

SONY NET WORK STATION R3000 Monitor Release 2.0A
Model NWS-3710, Machine ID #30145, Ethernet address 08:00:46:00:79:e7

NEWS> bo fh
NetBSD/newsmips Primary Boot
NetBSD/newsmips Secondary Boot, Revision 1.7
(***@tgm.daemon.org, Sat Sep 7 19:57:02 UTC 2002)
Booting fh(0,0,0)
3788624+127656=0x3bc394

<back to the ss20, kushana -------------------->
# dd if=boot-newsmips-1.6H.fs bs=18k of=/dev/rfd0a
68+1 records in
68+1 records out
# eject floppy

<back to karas ------------------------>
Testing memories: done.
12288K bytes available, 32K bytes reserved.

SONY NET WORK STATION R3000 Monitor Release 2.0A
Model NWS-3710, Machine ID #30145, Ethernet address 08:00:46:00:79:e7

NEWS> bo fh
NetBSD/newsmips Primary Boot
NetBSD/newsmips Secondary Boot, Revision 1.7
(***@tgm.daemon.org, Sat Sep 7 19:57:02 UTC 2002)
Booting fh(0,0,0)
3788624+127656=0x3bc394

<back to kushana -------------------->
# dd if=boot-newsmips-1.6H2.fs bs=18k of=/dev/rfd0a
66+1 records in
66+1 records out
# eject floppy

<back to karas ------------------------>
Testing memories: done.
12288K bytes available, 32K bytes reserved.

SONY NET WORK STATION R3000 Monitor Release 2.0A
Model NWS-3710, Machine ID #30145, Ethernet address 08:00:46:00:79:e7

NEWS> bo fh
NetBSD/newsmips Primary Boot
NetBSD/newsmips Secondary Boot, Revision 1.7
(***@mirage, Sat Sep 14 18:20:02 JST 2002)
Booting fh(0,0,0)
3714880+127988=0x3aa4d0

<back to kushana -------------------->
# dd if=boot-newsmips-14L-nofb.fs bs=18k of=/dev/rfd0a
write: Invalid argument
66+1 records in
66+1 records out
# eject floppy

Does not sound very promising; I wonder if the file was corrupted
when I downloaded...

<back to karas ------------------------>
Testing memories: done.
12288K bytes available, 32K bytes reserved.

SONY NET WORK STATION R3000 Monitor Release 2.0A
Model NWS-3710, Machine ID #30145, Ethernet address 08:00:46:00:79:e7

NEWS> bo fh

TLB miss exception (Load or instruction fetch)
cause=80000008, sr=40c404, badvaddr=1c38, epc=a0000000
NEWS>

It sure makes me wonder if (a) the floppy drive is dirty/whatever or
(b) the machine is otherwise defective. =(

Izumi Tsutsui

2002-09-24 15:02:18 UTC

Hi, sorry for late reply,

Post by Mauricio
# dd if=boot-newsmips-1.6H2.fs bs=18k of=/dev/rfd0a
66+1 records in
66+1 records out
# eject floppy
<back to karas ------------------------>
Testing memories: done.
12288K bytes available, 32K bytes reserved.
SONY NET WORK STATION R3000 Monitor Release 2.0A
Model NWS-3710, Machine ID #30145, Ethernet address 08:00:46:00:79:e7
NEWS> bo fh
NetBSD/newsmips Primary Boot
NetBSD/newsmips Secondary Boot, Revision 1.7
Booting fh(0,0,0)
3714880+127988=0x3aa4d0

Ugh, 1.6H2 kernel didn't work? Ok, I'll make new boot image
with some debug printf messages in boot loader.

Post by Mauricio
NEWS> bo fh
TLB miss exception (Load or instruction fetch)
cause=80000008, sr=40c404, badvaddr=1c38, epc=a0000000
NEWS>
It sure makes me wonder if (a) the floppy drive is dirty/whatever or
(b) the machine is otherwise defective. =(
-rw-rw-rw- 1 raub weirdos 1231352 Sep 15 10:14 boot-newsmips-14L-nofb.fs

Then I guess you did not gunzip the image.
(sorry, only 14L-nofb image is gzipped.)
Please try it again ;-)
---
Izumi Tsutsui
***@ceres.dti.ne.jp

Emmanuel Chaput

2002-09-15 13:21:26 UTC

Hi !

It looks like there are NWS-3XXX users out there !!!

Has any of them managed to change the NVRAM ? My 3410 seems to
boot fine, but just after the NewsOS banner, I have a message like

enter your registration number for 0x60cc3ec:

NetBSD can not boot neither, but I can't remember the message.
I could make a test and send the result if anyone could help me.

(This is not my first post on the subject)

Any help is welcome !!!

Manu

Izumi Tsutsui

2002-09-15 13:49:50 UTC

Post by Emmanuel Chaput
Has any of them managed to change the NVRAM ? My 3410 seems to
boot fine, but just after the NewsOS banner, I have a message like

I think this massage is printed by NEWS-OS to keep its license,
and there is no hardware problem on your hardware.
(Sorry, actually I have few knowledge about NEWS-OS :-)

Anyway, NEWS machines uses the same NVRAM (m48t02) with SPARCstations
and you could replace it, but I heard rumor that the registration
program has y2k problem.

Post by Emmanuel Chaput
NetBSD can not boot neither, but I can't remember the message.
I could make a test and send the result if anyone could help me.

3410's framebuffer is not supported and you have to use serial console.
It would have the same problem with 37x0, so please try boot images
in my previous post.
---
Izumi Tsutsui
***@ceres.dti.ne.jp

Emmanuel Chaput

2002-09-15 14:06:10 UTC

Post by Izumi Tsutsui
Anyway, NEWS machines uses the same NVRAM (m48t02) with SPARCstations
and you could replace it, but I heard rumor that the registration

That's what I did ...

Post by Izumi Tsutsui
program has y2k problem.

Yes ? Where in the NVRAM is the date stored ? Maybe I can try
to change this with the help of the 3410's boot prom monitor ?

I'll try to use the kernel from your last post, but a few
months ago, NetBSD did not boot (well, I guess the kernel was
loaded, but no more ...)

Thanks !

Manu

Izumi Tsutsui

2002-09-15 14:17:56 UTC

Post by Emmanuel Chaput

Post by Izumi Tsutsui
program has y2k problem.

Yes ? Where in the NVRAM is the date stored ?

M48T02 has 2KB NVRAM and RTC clock in it. TOD is not stored
in NVRAM area, and it should be accessed as the device.

Post by Emmanuel Chaput
Maybe I can try
to change this with the help of the 3410's boot prom monitor ?

Probably the monitor can't modify it (but I'm not sure).
NetBSD could access it, but anyway m48t02 only keeps two digits
for the year, and y2k problem with it should be handled by software.
Replacing hardware would not solve the problem.
---
Izumi Tsutsui
***@ceres.dti.ne.jp

Emmanuel Chaput

2002-09-15 16:04:21 UTC