[SunRescue] Sun 3/80 tape booting woes

[BSD Bob]

> Hello folks,
> Along with my 3/110, i also have a 3/80 that I want to bring back to
> life. So i finally downloaded the Sun3x version of the SunOS 4.1.1 boot
> tape images from Heiko's sun3 archive, and made the boot tape onto a
> QIC-150 with a modified "dd" script that is included. The process for
> that seemed to go without any errors.

The 3/80 should boot off an 18 track tape, mine did.

> The problem now is actually booting the 3/80 with this tape. I first
> power up the machine, and everything looks healthy...e.g. mac address
> and host id show up as they should..no checksum error.. It does a memory
> test and that goes ok too. Then it tries to boot from the HD:
> 
> Boot: sd(0,8,0)

It is trying to boot from the HD.  In rom set the boot device to null,
and it will stop in the eprom mode, if memory serves me correctly.
I forget which byte that is that needs to be reset, but it is in one
of the sun3arc ditties.

> and then it comes up with this error message:
> 
> Error: (PSR = 0x203) Timeout Bus Error:
> Vaddr: FEFF0690, Paddr: 63010690, Write FC 5, Size 1 at 0x00003FBC.

I get that kind of error quite often, when booting a new system.
I am  not sure what it means.  My fix is just to reboot several times,
and it usually finally takes.  My expectation is that everything is not
in hardware sync, or maybe a memory location came up with an undetermined
value that stops the boot.

> So then i figured since the drive came out of an SS1 and has a Sparc
> SunOS 4.1.3_u1 loaded on it, it simply cant read the boot block...

That could be.  An improper assembler code at that point might cause
it to stop.   Sparc codes do that on 68K machines....mine too.

> Then i try booting from the SunOS 4.1.1 boot tape that i just made, on
> my Sun QIC-150 Archive tape drive. I type:
> 
> >b st()
> 
> Then the tape starts to go into action, spinning and switching tracks.
> It then promts with the message:
> 
> Boot st(0,28,0)
> 
> and then it continues to to its business until it comes to a halt with
> the error message:
> 
> Error: (PSR = 0x203) Timeout Bus Error:
> Vaddr: 0AF72345, Paddr: 00000345, Read FC 5, Size 2 at 0x00004000.
> 
> My question is, do these error messages mean that my 3/80 has a problem,
> or my tape has a problem??

Try booting several times from the tape, in sequence.  On my machines,
the first boot often  will not take, and pressing  the reset button,
then doing a second boot, usually does.  On the 3/80 you may have to
turn it off, then back on after a 10 second delay.  Make sure the
external peripherals are turned on first, and that the tape is loaded
before bringing up the cpu.  You should hear it rewind and reset the
tape at some point, as the cpu boots.

> My NVRAM is ok and I believe set the settings in the prom monitor
> correctly.
> My prom version is 3.0.2.

Mine went dead, and I have to get another one before I can get the 3/80
back online.  I was running NetBSD on mine, and it booted and ran just
fine.  I am thinking that rom revision should be OK on  18 track tapes,
but, check the sun3arc ditties for details.  All my stuff is at home,
so I am shooting from the memory hip, offhand.

> Id appreciate any help because it looks like ive exhaused all my
> resources for the weekend... :-)

That is all I can think of, offhand.

Bob