[rescue] Personal Workstation 433a happiness

[Bjorn Ramqvist]

Guys, I'm just soooo happy right now.

On my desk beside me stands a WindowsNT-only (*cough*) Alpha, a Personal
Workstation 433a. This guy is a downgraded, mentally handicaped version
of the o-so-wonderful Personal Workstation, just without the "u" in
"433au", making it "impossible" to anything else than WindowsNT 4.0 or
Windows2000 pre-release.
I've always wondered, what differs these beasts from eachother? I mean,
it's a 10/100 Mbit Ethernet in there, an ass-kicking 433MHz Alpha w/ 2MB
cache, and even a Powerstorm 4D50T card! It's one step away from a
wonderful workstation!

I tried multiple times trying to install Redhat 7.1 Alpha, Debian Alpha
and God-knows-what how many different boot-enviroments I tried, to no
luck at all. I just can't cope with AlphaBIOS/ARC. (Braindead way of
booting)
The last thing I tried was to update the firmware on this baby. Got the
"433a" firmware from ftp.digital.com and updated it. Whoop. It first
loads the fwupdate.exe into RAM, then it initialize itself and for just
1-2 secs you can see something like SRM showing up!

This means it has to go into SRM mode to update the firmware. Hmm.
So anyway, I tried upgrading the firmware (which was waay old), but to
no avail. Still this stinky AlphaBIOS. Must be some way to convert this
baby to a full-blown 433au! It IS a SRM-firmware part in the FlashROM,
it's just no way to get into that mode from AlphaBIOS/ARC.

I opened up the covers and checked all the switches, found nothing.
I started to wonder if I would do a die-hard trick and fool the FlashROM
to think it's a "433au" instead of just "433a". This means I have to
take a chance of not being able to boot this system again, ever, if
something goes wrong.
Anyway, I downloaded the firmware for the au-series and fired it up.
Same thing. Even LOOKS like the same firmware update to me.

My last try on this one was an idea I had in my mind right from when I
saw the first SRM-looking text from the firmware update. So, I loaded
fwupdate.exe and waited for the blue screen to appear after load
finished. Right. Hit Ctrl+C a couple of times, making the firmware menu
to bail out, and there I was, in the SRM console!
(Guys, you can't believe the feeling)

I set the BOOTDEF_DEV varirable to "" (just in case) and set OS_TYPE
from "NT" to "UNIX", and checked to see if there was anything suspicious
with the other console variables, but it looked ok so I typed "init" and
hit that return key. My hair stood up. "Was this baby doomed to be
WindowsNT-only forever?"
Blue screen and the ">>>" prompt. Success! (I thought)
I typed "show config", looked OK. I typed "show dev" (to see what
devices-ID the CDROM were), nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I was ready to junk this baby for spare parts when it just hit me, "try
power-cycling" said a distant voice back in my head, and so I did.

Blue screen and ">>>" prompt. "show dev" and all devices were there!
Right now I'm running Tru64 UNIX 5.1A and can't be more happy at this
moment. :-)


-- 
Vdnliga hdlsningar/Best Regards
Bjvrn Ramqvist, Hdgglunds Vehicle AB