[rescue] SPARCEngine 1E and VME Memory Boards

Sun Jun 12 07:13:12 EDT 2022

Hi folks,

What happened to 4.1e gfx tape?

If it hasn’t been shipped yet, someone to contact me off list, I will cover
the shipping and I will dump it.

Best regards,
Plamen

On Tuesday, May 24, 2022, Richard <ejb at trick-1.net> wrote:

> Cool and thank you
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On 24 May 2022, at 15:44, Plamen Mihaylov <plamenspam at afterpeople.com>
> wrote:
>
> I misread your first post and thought only the 2nd mem board is not
> detected. In this case I would not try to connect 1e with 3e mem via VSB.
> On other hand, when I was looking for 1e memory boards I attached a MVME2xx
> VSB memory to 1E , it didn’t work, but at least there was no “boom”.
> I use a regular VSB cable from Motorola 8000 series. These are very common
> in MVME141based  systems.
> The VSB cable uses A and C rows of pins, but are much shorter than the
> ones used in Motorola transition boards.
> Mororola part number is 30-W2645B01
>
> On Tuesday, May 24, 2022, Richard <ejb at trick-1.net> wrote:
>
>> Hi Plamen
>>
>> Any pointers to a VSB cable? Sun part number etc?
>>
>> No it wasn’t seen over the VME bus…despite my wishing and
>> misunderstanding of the documentation 🤪
>>
>> Richard
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On 24 May 2022, at 15:03, Plamen Mihaylov <plamenspam at afterpeople.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> It is a VSB cable. It is mandatory to be used in Sparcengine 1e memory
>> as well as sun3e.
>>
>> I am little bit surprised that 1e has detected the sun3e memory board
>> over vmebus only.
>>
>>
>> On Tuesday, May 24, 2022, Richard <ejb at trick-1.net> wrote:
>>
>>> So thank you for the pointer and in a classic RTFM moment…:-)
>>>
>>> In the !E CPU Card Users Manual Section 17, page 137, (its a matter of
>>> reading a few pages I guess)
>>>
>>> <snip>
>>> The SPARCengine 1E P2 Bus is unique to the SPARCengine 1E. It is not
>>> compatible with the P2 Bus on any other Sun Microsystems card products. Use
>>> of the Sun Microsystems P2 bus for development is discouraged by Sun
>>> Microsystems, who reserves the right to re-configure the P2 Bus of each
>>> product related. The p2 Bus Is not documented for public use.
>>> </snip>
>>>
>>> Well thats handy! And then the killer
>>>
>>> <snip>
>>> While the SPARCengine 1E card family will work in a Sun-3E compatible
>>> back-plane, Sun-3E parity memory cards are NOT supported in a SPARCengine
>>> 1E system
>>> <snip>
>>>
>>> It says "not supported” but does that mean it might work, just don’t
>>> call Sun if it fails…kind of not supported or literally absolutely will
>>> never work kind of not supported…..hmmm
>>>
>>> So even if I had a 1E memory card (I had one on order that was refunded
>>> as they couldn’t find it) I still probably wouldn’t be able to use it as I
>>> have a Schroff I/O board for my P2 connector and not a Sun one…
>>>
>>> Off to go play with my SS1000 and do the memory upgrade I have been
>>> putting off for over a year.
>>>
>>> In the mean time….anyone found a SunOS 4.0.3e or 4.1e OS tape kicking
>>> around?
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>>
>>> Richard
>>>
>>>
>>> On 24 May 2022, at 11:05 am, Richard <ejb at trick-1.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi Ethan
>>>
>>> Super interesting. Do you have any reference material for that?
>>>
>>> The only reference I have is http://www.bitsavers.org/pd
>>> f/sun/sparc/800-8137-02_The_SPARCengine_1E_CPU_Card_Users_Ma
>>> nual_Apr90.pdf and from what I can determine it doesn’t mention or
>>> elude to any of the below…then there are the FE manuals but they don’t talk
>>> much about this either.
>>>
>>> I have to say this is one of the more challenging bring backs I have
>>> done for a while.
>>>
>>> Richard
>>>
>>> On 24 May 2022, at 10:53 am, Ethan Hawke <ehawk at ember.systems> wrote:
>>>
>>> The 1E uses the SBus as it's main system bus, and uses the S4-VME chip
>>> to interface with the VME bus as an IO controller not as memory.
>>>
>>> In regards to the connector, the P2 connector is the second (lower)
>>> connector on the VME backplane, the unused outer row of pins on the P2
>>> connector is used as the memory interface on the 1E. So the cable would be
>>> installed behind the backplane (like you would a paddleboard), while the
>>> pinout on the 1E's P2 is provided on the 1E manual, I don't have a copy of
>>> the 1E memory manual to find the pinout of the P2 connector on that (or the
>>> registers for the memory controller on board the memory expansion card). So
>>> to expand the 1E you will need a 1E memory card, and the correct backplane
>>> cable to connect them.
>>>
>>> As for mapping generic memory cards, that will be quite tricky, while
>>> you can use the /dev/vmea32d32 interface to talk to it, to use it as memory
>>> would require modifying the OS and OpenBoot to add the correct ranges to
>>> the 'available' attribute. However it won't be cacheable and will hurt
>>> performance.
>>>
>>> If any one has a copy of the 1E Memory board user manual that would be
>>> helpful.
>>>
>>> So if you want to expand the memory on a 1E, you will have to find a
>>> memory board and create the special cable, I can only assume that it's a
>>> straight through cable, but besides from that I don't know the details.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Ethan
>>> On 5/24/22 07:43, Richard wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi Ethan
>>>
>>> Thanks for that…..
>>>
>>> The sun 3e boards don’t have a special cable https://shrubbery.net/~h
>>> eas/sun-feh-2_1/Systems/Sun3/FEH3.enter.html I have the 501-8031 . The
>>> Sun 4e memory boards don’t have any special cable either
>>> 501-8042/501-8036/501-8060 https://oldcomputers-ddns.
>>> org/public/pub/rechner/other_hardware/sun/sparc_4-330/sun-4x.pdf . They
>>> look very much the same :-/
>>>
>>> How would I map them manually? Any pointers/howto?
>>>
>>> FWIW in my SPARCStation 1 I have the SBUS memory expansion with a
>>> special jumper cable. That won’t fit on this board.
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>>
>>> Richard
>>>
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>
>>> On 23 May 2022, at 20:25, Ethan Hawke <ehawk at ember.systems>
>>> <ehawk at ember.systems> wrote:
>>>
>>> 
>>>
>>> Hey Richard,
>>>
>>> Unfortunately that is not how the 1E works. Only one of the special
>>> memory boards with the custom P2 cable will work.
>>>
>>> Do the sun 3e boards use a special cable or just the standard VME bus?
>>> If standard VME you can map them in manually but they will exist in IO (aka
>>> obio or "type 1") space and won't be cacheable.
>>>
>>> The custom P2 cable carries the remaining signals to detect memory space
>>> accesses similar to the 'SBus Expansion Connector" on SS1/SS2 to use the
>>> special SBus memory boards.
>>>
>>> Sorry to disappoint,
>>> Ethan
>>> On 5/23/22 17:29, Richard wrote:
>>>
>>> Sadly they are all I have…I was working on the theory that owners of the
>>> 3/E would have upgraded to the 4/E without issue.
>>>
>>> Much like the 3/260 to 4/260 upgrade I did back in the day. Remove old
>>> cpu board insert new COU board, install fresh OS and keep using all the
>>> memory boards etc.
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>
>>> On 23 May 2022, at 17:11, Plamen Mihaylov <plamenspam at afterpeople.com>
>>> <plamenspam at afterpeople.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> 
>>> Hi Richard,
>>>
>>> Maybe there is incompatibility between 3E and 1E mem boards when they
>>> are stacked. Do you have 4E60-16 or/and 501-8060 to test ?
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>> Plamen
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, May 23, 2022 at 9:46 AM Richard <ejb at trick-1.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Plamen
>>>>
>>>> Manual indicates that multiple are supported
>>>>
>>>> http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/sun/sparc/800-8137-02_The_SPARC
>>>> engine_1E_CPU_Card_Users_Manual_Apr90.pdf
>>>>
>>>> See pages 36 and 37…..
>>>>
>>>> Richard
>>>>
>>>> On 23 May 2022, at 3:45 pm, Plamen Mihaylov <plamenspam at afterpeople.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Richard,
>>>>
>>>> I don’t sparcengine 1E is designed to handle 2 memory boards.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Best regards,
>>>> Plamen
>>>>
>>>> On Monday, May 23, 2022, Richard <ejb at trick-1.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi folks
>>>>>
>>>>> Looking for some suggestions/guidance or help.
>>>>>
>>>>> I am Looking to add 2x 4Mb Sun 3/E memory boards to the SPARCEngine 1E.
>>>>>
>>>>> I do note that these are memory boards from the Sun3/E but am of the
>>>>> understanding that they will work.
>>>>>
>>>>> Reading through the SPARCEngine manual I have added the jumpers to my
>>>>> schroff Backplane to bridge slot 2 as this is empty - the sbus video card
>>>>> occupies the slot.
>>>>>
>>>>> Configuration is
>>>>> Slot1: SPARCEngine
>>>>> Slot2: jumpered and empty
>>>>> Slot3: 4Mb memory bord jumpered for 4-8MB
>>>>> Slot4: 4Mb memory bord jumpered for 8-12Mb.
>>>>>
>>>>> Now on post I don’t see the extra 8mb.
>>>>>
>>>>> Anyone got any ideas ? I read something about telling the nvram about
>>>>> the VME cards but not familiar with that process or how to do so.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks in advance
>>>>>
>>>>> Richard
>>>>>
>>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>>>
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>>>>>
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