[CLUE-Tech] Alpha bios info.

[Sean LeBlanc]

On 12-13 23:13, Dave Anselmi wrote:
> Here's what I've found about flashing the AS255's bios.  Not that it's
> helped much.
> 
> There are 2 bios consoles for the alpha, SRM and ARC/Alphabios.  The
> first understands BSD disklables and the second understands DOS
> partition tables.  They are for booting to Digital Unix or NT,
> respectively.  Some alphas have both in their bios, but the 255 can only
> hold one.  Milo works with both, aboot only works with SRM.

I've found that the 255 is sometimes referred to as a "half-flash" system
because of the limitation you talk about above: one of those only in the
BIOS.

> At the advice of the debian install guide (for woody), I decided to
> upgrade the bios.  We likely have a recent rev - Alphabios 5.68 is the
> latest out.  Debian also suggests using SRM, since milo may not be
> available in a recent form.
> 
> I've made the update floppy and run it.  I've made a bootable version of
> the same floppy and run that.  Both work to get me to a screen with 3
> menu options, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do anything at that
> point.  All the mail I've read says I should be able to upgrade the bios
> and pick SRM or Alphabios.
> 
> Interestingly, you can boot from either bios console to several boot
> devices, though SRM seems more flexible.  So I don't really need to
> change the bios.  The switch inside (S2) that says 'boot from floppy'
> means skip the bios console and boot from the floppy.  So if you mess up
> the bios, you can still run the update program to fix it.

Hmmm. Seems you've had more success than me in this regard...I've copied
the as255_v8_1.exe to disk as fwupdate.exe, but update BIOS function in 
AlphaBIOS doesn't seem to recognize it - it just says insert disk with
update utility on it. I have no idea what else I can try, other than maybe
a different floppy as maybe there is some issue with it.  

BTW, the FreeBSD CD has two files at top level, one called hardware and one
called install. Both are in plain text or html. Hardware goes pretty deep
into all kinds of nuances of the hardware, why Linux can/does boot from
AlphaBIOS, and that FreeBSD is an SRM-only deal, among other things. Of
course, it is FreeBSD-centric, but it looks like there is a lot of info
there....it still hasn't helped me get SRM on my box, though. :) Anyway, if
anyone wants either of these, let me know. I thought about attaching them,
but hardware is 127K and the install is 57K - and that's for the plain text
versions - the html versions are a bit bigger.


-- 
Sean LeBlanc:seanleblanc at attbi.com Yahoo:seanleblancathome 
ICQ:138565743 MSN:seanleblancathome AIM:sleblancathome 
Your actions, and your action alone, determines your worth. 
-Johann G. Fichte 
Management QOTD:Look. We have to ensure enough cycles to avoid getting too
wrapped up and prototype the object oriented design.