[rescue] SPARCEngine 1E and VME Memory Boards

Tue May 24 01:43:21 EDT 2022

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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