[rescue] ok, this is just WIERD

[Brian Hechinger]

i finally got all the FDDI cables that i needed to get my sparc5 up and running
(thanks again for the FDDI card big mike!) so i thought i'd give it a go.  well
the hard drive won't work.  bah.  the rest of the SCA disks i have are very
smartly put in the SSA, which i brilliantly put at the very bottom of a HUGE
stack of stuff in the closet in a cleaning frenzy last week.  well.  no disks
for my sparc5.  then i remembered i have this DEC BA350 downstairs with three
1G disks in it that i just got to put on the NetApp.  this is as good a time as
any to test this thing i figured, since the NetApp isn't operational yet.  so
i do so.  and do a probe-scsi to check the disks.  then i can't type anymore.
what was that again?  hmmmmm.

so i reboot the sparc5, i can type.  i type probe-scsi, it prints out the
results, and then hangs the serial console.  odd.  so i exit tip.  and try
to reconnect to the serial line:

wonko at wintermute$ tip -9600 /dev/term/a
link down

huh?  so i plug the serial line into the other serial port on the sparc20, and
fire up tip.

ok probe-scsi
Target 3 
  Unit 0   Disk     DEC     RZ28     (C) DECD41C000042654633!
                    
Target 4 
  Unit 0   Disk     DEC     RZ28     (C) DECD41C000042654074!
                    
Target 5 
  Unit 0   Disk     DEC     RZ28M    (C) DEC0568
Target 6 
  Unit 0   Removable Read Only device     TOSHIBA CD-ROM XM-4101TA108404/18/94
                                          
                                          
ok ~
[EOT]
wonko at wintermute$ tip -9600 /dev/term/b
link down

at the last ok prompt it froze again.  but i could ~. to get out of tip.  ok,
this is annoying, i now have two hosed serial ports on my sparc20.  guess i'll
have to reboot to get them back.  anyway, so i go and i grab my VT510.  plug it
in, type probe-scsi and you'll never guess what happens.  you guessed it, the
serial connection freezes.  break doesn't work, power cycle the VT510 (but not
the sparc5) and i get back to a ok prompt i can type at.

so it's not the serial port on the sparc5, but the serial port on the machine
you are connecting to the sparc5 with that gets hosed.  what could possibly
cause something like this?  i'm stumped.

-brian