[SunRescue] Sparc 1 struggles

[James Lockwood]

On Sun, 30 Apr 2000, Darryl Barile wrote:

> Ooops...
> 
> Message subject lines and late nite problems again
> 
> I recently bought a SparcStation 1 home to try and satisfy a need for
> curiosity. Unlike some other Suns I've seen this unit has a card in the Sbus
> slot right abiove the processor that plugs into the processor slot in the
> mainboard by a set of long 'pins', very interesting. The part number
> is 500-1454. Not sure if this is part of the problem or not.

Wow, that's a blast from the past!

TI Floating Point Unit
Sun-4/60
501-1454

 1.The TI FPU was shipped from August to November 1989. 
 2.Approximately 130 TI FRUs were shipped to customers. 
 3.The TI FPU is replaced with a Weitek FPU upon failure. 

Early (early!) Sparc 1's were not shipped with a FPU.  This card was a
prerelease primarily to test code.  There were some incompatibilities with
the "real" FPU but they were minor.

I collect them.  I've got 3% of the production run so far.  :)

Have you tried booting in 7E1 instead of 8N1?  The problem you are
describing sounds like what happens when a SunOS kernel takes over from
the PROM for console output and switches the mode.

-James