[SPARCbook] Tadpole Viper IDProm

[stephen price]

Unfortunately - Tadpole did not ever implement the regular expected commands
in their version of an OBP, most likely since the later laptops were built on
a pc style system board (acer / compal). I was told that it was an incomplete
version of Forth etc.

In the last 12~18 months or so - all of the folks that
I ever knew @ Tadpole support and development over the years have left.  I've
spoken and emailed some of the new names, and while polite and nice folks -
the corporate culture under GD appears to have tightened up the grip on the
free flow of technical information.

That being said - here is the sequence of
commands 
(I was lucky - I got these from the support folks a year or so ago)
1) first check that the idprom / nvram / clock chip is functioning correctly.
ok > watch-clock

The counter should increment every second.  If it doesn't -
then the nvram chip itself (surface mounted - not sure if its BGA) has to be
replaced.  There must be 2.8V-3.3V across pin 2.  The tophat timekeeper
battery (M4T28) sits right on top of the nvram - just unplug it before you
test etc.

The nvram itself was bad on my system board - and I had it repaired
at a location other than Ironix (Tadpole/GD) for about 1/3 the cost.

2) if
the idprom / nvram chip is good - then use these commands
ok > 0083xxxxxx
set-host-id
ok > reset-sys

There is also a "reset-button" that you can use
with a paperclip if the cmd "reset-sys" doesn't work.  It (small hole) is
located on the right side to the left of the PCMCIA slot. 

The system should
reset/reboot and all should be happy and post correctly.

So that you don't
have to make up a host-id - first look underneath the keyboard - there might
be a sticker with the original MAC address.  I think it only is there on later
laptops (SPARCLe, Viper, Bullfrog etc) - not sure about the SparcBook series.
Hope that this helps some more folks out ....

regards 

steve
ftw tx