[rescue] Vendor software support [was Re: RPi vs SS20 benchmarks (interesting)]

[Dave McGuire]

On 01/04/2016 03:11 PM, Stefan Skoglund (lokal anvdndare) wrote:
>>>>   In my experience, "in the old days" (this may have improved later on)
>>>> when SPARCstation-10s were current, Sun employees were the people who
>>>> knew the least about Sun hardware.  In one particular instance, I was
>>>> told that what I was proposing categorically COULD NOT WORK.  No way, no
>>>> how.  Trouble is, on that phone call, I was leaning up against a rack in
>>>> which I had built up the suggested configuration; it was running in
>>>> production.
>>>
>>> And what was it which you had done ?
>>>
>>> Not that old trick with a VME-chass and a lot of 4/490 processor cards ?
>>
>>   Hahaa, no, WAY before that.  (That was 4/600s).  But it was similar; I
>> filled VME chassis with 3/50 and 3/60 boards.
> 
> 3/50 and 3/60 were VME-bus processor cards...

  VME form-factor, yes, but they only pull power from the bus.

> That trick with an bus cage and multiple 4/600 cards included destroying
> the address and data lines in the cage (if i'm remembering correctly.)

  Ugh, if anyone working for me did that, I'd have fired them.

  The correct way to do it is to upgrade to the last release of the
4/600 boot ROMs, which allowed one to put the VME bus subsystem into
loopback mode.  This effectively disconnects the (completely
self-contained) 4/600 processor board from the bus, except for power.

> You didn't do the same thing (at that time) ?

  No.

> When was this ?
> 1990-92 (an 4/490 with sunos4 was my first exposure to unix, and then it
> was a small bunch of 3/60 and i believ one or two 3/80 and oh yes a new
> lab filled with grand spanking new 1+ , this was in UmeC%.)

  1992.

              -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA