[SunRescue] Trying to save Sun2

[jwbirdsa at picarefy.picarefy.com]

>:#2 I hooked up a terminal (DEC VT220) to SIO-A. All I get is a lot of
>:gibberish. I've tried all possible settings. How can I get it to work?
>
>9600-8-n-1 300-7-e-1 are the two guesses. Make sure all forms of flow control
>and error correction are turned OFF.

   It's 9600, 8N1 I believe, but you'll have to pull the
framebuffer/keyboard/mouse board in order to get SIO-A as the console.
If you have the board in but no keyboard attached, the boot ROMs will take
input from SIO-A, but still send output to the framebuffer. (Possibly
version-dependent, but that's what mine all did.)
   Note that due to lousy mechanical design, it's not too hard to pull a
board, but getting it back in is extremely difficult. Sometimes the only
way is to pull the side panel off the chassis and support the backplane
from behind with a hand.

>:#3 If I manage to get the console working, how do I proceed in
>:installing an Operating System?
>
>You'll need a really old version of SunOS, like 4.0.3.

   Actually, that was the very newest version of SunOS that these could
run, and not many were upgraded enough (new boot ROMs to support QIC-24
drives) to take it. SunOS 3.x is your best best, but you'll need a working
QIC-11 drive to install it. QIC-11 drives were stock on the 2/120, but
whether it's still working is another question entirely.

   There are no other OSes for the Sun-2 line.

   --James B.