[rescue] Need help in booting Sun 2/50

[David Brownlee]

On 27 June 2013 17:12, Michael Ng <michaelng0623 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I was directed by Vintage-computer.com member to seek your advice on how to
> boot a Sun 2/50 which I just acquired, it has the model 2 keyboard but not
> the mouse, and the KB does not have the adaptor to be connected to the CPU.
> When the system is turned on it displays below:
>
> Probing I/O bus: ie
> Using RS232 A input.
> Auto-boot in progress ...
> Boot: ie (0,0,0) vmunix
> X
>
> I have the shoebox 511A but the CPU does not havet DD50 connector -  it
> seems it has been removed at somepoint. I am new to early Sun hardware and
> can you give some idea on how to boot it to point of Windows? I have SunOS
> 3.5 tapes and 4.0.3 tapes and the shoebox seems to work as when I plug it
> to Sun 3/60 it makes noise.

If you do not have the keyboard cable you should be able to connect a
crossover serial cable at 9600N1 to another machine (the 3/60 would be
a good case, or even a PC), and use it as a keyboard with the display
still on the monitor.

Would definitely recommend attempting to boot diskless from another
*ix box - the boot messages should indicate hardware - specifically
whether the SCSI is present and missing connector or not present at
all.

Since its attempting to autoboot from ethernet already you do not even
need the serial or keyboard connected initially :)

If you are that way inclined (and it has 4M) you could event boot
NetBSD on the box

http://www.netbsd.org/docs/network/netboot/intro.sun2.html /
http://www.netbsd.org/ports/sun2/

You may also want to download the tme emulator which would allow you
to experiment with an emulated sun2 on another machine, just so you
can confirm your boot & other file setup is good :)

Nice machine to score - would have loved to get my hands on a sun2 (or
a 3/60 for that matter! :)

David