Sun Open Firmware - insiders?

[Dan Williams]

On 19/12/05, Arno Kletzander <Arno_1983 at gmx.de> wrote:
> Stan Barr <stanb at dial.pipex.com> wrote:
>
> > (...) Open Firmware - a superset of ANS-Standard Forth used for
> > detecting and setting up the hardware etc. on Sun, Apple and some
> > IBM machines.  It can be accessed from the console as well, allowing
> > you  to probe and set up hardware manually should you need to, or
> > as a normal Forth of course...
>
> This seems like a good time to tap into the collective knowledge on this
> list once more...
>
> I have a question regarding Sun OpenFirmware that's been bugging me for
> some time now. I'm still struggling for a setup that allows a Sun to netboot
> off a Windows 9x PC (just get a bootstrap, no fancy NFS exports required).
> I'm making do with SuSE Linux 7.0 dual-boot right now, but that's not it.
>
> What I'm imagining here is to have a look at the code that is responsible
> for the netbooting operation of the Sun. Why does it have to obtain the
> machine's IP, that of the tftp server and what else via rarp? I'm by no
> means a Sun expert yet, but as I've understood it, you can define your own
> FCode commands and store them in NVRAM, so one could modify the boot code to
> use parameters stored in environment variables, either if a flag
> "use-stored-IP?" is set or as a fallback if there's no rarp server around.
>
> I've already got myself a Forth book and the FCode manuals from Sun, and I
> had a look at some commands with "see". "see" however often spits out
> hexadecimal codes in parenthesis amidst of Forth words and I've yet to
> understand what they mean; the manual addresses the problem only far enough
> to tell that this doesn't happen if words are defined with the "headers"
> directive.
>
> If somebody has been involved with FCode stuff far enough to give me some
> initial guidance, please contact me. Thanks in Advance.
>
> Yours sincerely,
>
> --
> Arno Kletzander
> Stud. Hilfskraft Informatik Sammlung Erlangen
> www.iser.uni-erlangen.de
>
> Telefonieren Sie schon oder sparen Sie noch?
> NEU: GMX Phone_Flat http://www.gmx.net/de/go/telefonie
>
I can't really help you directly, but I have had no problems booting
sun machines from windows using vmware and virtual pc. I also have
netbsd installed on simh vax, which I used to boot an octane a while
back. I guess that cygwin would probably do the job as well.
Unless you really want to spend time playing with open firmwire, it
might be easier.

Dan