[rescue] Compaq Proliant 8000

[Nathan Raymond]

On Thu, 29 Apr 2004, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:

> Then why do the cards not work when I move them to other systems?

If a card needs to operate during boot, before OS drivers load, or if the
drivers actually probe the cards firmware, they won't work in a different
architecture.

> For example, putting a non-Apple video card in an Apple.  Can't boot
> with it, but it seems fine as a secondary display card.

There are a few cards that some Macs have OF drivers for, oddly enough...
I'm aware of some folks getting unflashed GeForce 2MX cards operating in
some G4s.  But usually you have to flash the firmware to get it to work.
I have a PC Radeon 8500 AGP and a Radeon 7000 PCI that I flashed to be Mac
cards, and neither worked in my 'Gigabit' G4 until I flashed them with the
appropriate Mac ROM.

Some drivers only look at a card's low-level PCI identifier and don't
probe the firmware at all or need anything platform specific.  You could
use a 3Dfx Voodoo 1 or 2 in a Mac or PC without cross-flashing (this was
because they were only 3D cards and thus didn't need to do anything during
boot).  You could use a PC Voodoo 3 in a Mac thanks to an officially
sanctioned flasher from 3Dfx.

A PCI card with Mac firmware, like an Adaptec SCSI card, will work and be
usable in a PC, but it won't be a bootable device (and Adaptec played
games with firmware sizes to prevent cross-flashing as much as possible).

Are there any known cases of Mac PCI cards working in Sun workstations?
I have an AXe motherboard on it's way to me, and a number of Mac cards
(video, SCSI, ATA, USB/Firewire, etc.) not in use at the moment, and it
might be cool to make use of them in Solaris.

--
Nathan Raymond