shirsch
Veteran Member
How did you generate that image? Do you have the actual media?
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AT&T 7300 PC: Adventures in installing ETHERNET!!!
- Thread starter czunit
- Start date
agentb
Experienced Member
Nope, I found the image in an archive with the 5 Ethernet disk dumps, which I’d used to make that ETHERNET+IN file which appears to potentially have corruption.
agentb
Experienced Member
So looking at ETHERNET+IN from bitsavers, on linux, cpio lists the file sizes as:
115914 etc/lddrv/ether.o
111448 new/etc/lddrv/ether.o
new/etc/lddrv/ether.o is the last file in the cpio
Looks like new/etc/lddrv/ether.o of size 106496 on UNIX PC is 4952 bytes smaller than it should be (111448). Seems like something that needs to be dug into further...
agentb
Experienced Member
Looking at the original Ethernet disk 5 image (which is 316KB, presumably an 8sector image minus the 4KB header?), there are three "TRAILER!!!\0" sections towards the end of the image, along with some additional memory dump/random data/padding(?) after that. I see one TRAILER!!!\0 section and then a 2nd TRAILER!!! section without the \0 at the end of ETHERNET+IN. I'm not sure exactly how the cpio file is supposed to end, but I'm guessing TRAILER!!!\0. So the extra 1481 bytes at the end of ETHERNET+IN may need to be excised. I'll play around more when I have time to see if I can get the 111448 sized file extracting properly on UNIX PC.
agentb
Experienced Member
Running truncate -s 1578442 ETHERNET+IN under linux lops off the stray 1481 bytes at the end that I don't think should be there. Not sure yet if that helps the file cpio decompress properly under UNIX PC.
agentb
Experienced Member
OK I tried the truncated 1578442-sized ETHERNET+IN on UNIX PC and it still decompresses new ether.o to 106496 bytes so something else seems to be going on. new ether.o does cpio decompress to correct size on linux so quickest solution could be to just copy that file over from linux to UNIX PC...
agentb
Experienced Member
UGH, I think I found it -- try cpio -icduvm < ETHERNET+IN instead of what's mentioned in the FAQ (FAQ includes -B which uses 5120 byte records, which I'm assuming is derived from 10 sectors/trk * 512 bytes/sector = 5120 bytes/track -- so presumably for use with cpio from floppy disks).
This results in the proper file size of new ether.o and nm ether.o now works properly.
This results in the proper file size of new ether.o and nm ether.o now works properly.
agentb
Experienced Member
boom - the 111448 ether.o now loads properly.
Ah hah! That is helpful, thank you for troubleshooting.
Currently the system is in a..... state with the lid off, the Dave Gesswin emulator hooked to the HD ports, and I'm uploading ethernet+in via kermit to the sd copy of the image. This image does look different from mine as it puts up a message about the clock possibly being crocked (it is). I need to fix that as well.
Anyway I'll try it with the virtual image, then switch back to the hard drive and see if it works there. Fascinating stuff....
Edit: God it takes forever to kermit files at 9600. Can the serial ports be juiced to 192 or 384? Not for now but maybe down the road. Well except I should have ETHERNET!
Currently the system is in a..... state with the lid off, the Dave Gesswin emulator hooked to the HD ports, and I'm uploading ethernet+in via kermit to the sd copy of the image. This image does look different from mine as it puts up a message about the clock possibly being crocked (it is). I need to fix that as well.
Anyway I'll try it with the virtual image, then switch back to the hard drive and see if it works there. Fascinating stuff....
Edit: God it takes forever to kermit files at 9600. Can the serial ports be juiced to 192 or 384? Not for now but maybe down the road. Well except I should have ETHERNET!
And there it is.......
It does have an ICMP responder, doesn't have ping, is listening on Telnet port, so there we go. Doesn't look like it has a DNS resolver library set, I guess I need to go find the latest hosts.txt file and upload it.....
Next steps will be to load up the latest patches and such, then... well I'm not sure. Maybe I can rebuild the serial card to add some more memory to the system. Also need to figure out if it knows where routes are and how to set the default route. But in the meantime it's up and running.....
It does have an ICMP responder, doesn't have ping, is listening on Telnet port, so there we go. Doesn't look like it has a DNS resolver library set, I guess I need to go find the latest hosts.txt file and upload it.....
Next steps will be to load up the latest patches and such, then... well I'm not sure. Maybe I can rebuild the serial card to add some more memory to the system. Also need to figure out if it knows where routes are and how to set the default route. But in the meantime it's up and running.....
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Another question: Should we re-cpio the ETHERNET+IN file with the proper permissions and clean up the junk so it can be replaced on bitsavers, or update the FAQ? Fun to see I am the first person to hit this in years, but if someone else drags a 7300 out of a dungeon it could be helpful for them to have a proper install file.
Thank you again everyone, I'm glad there is still support for this old system...
Thank you again everyone, I'm glad there is still support for this old system...
agentb
Experienced Member
Nice, that’s great you got it working! I haven’t seen one running for real before.
Regarding 19200 on the serial port, i can’t get a straight answer on how possible that is. I’ve read you need to hex edit a file which I tried doing but wasn’t able to get 19200 working. Maybe needs hardware flow control to work properly? But I’ve also read there were issues/bugs with hardware flow control. So not sure what the magic combo is to get 19200 working.
Oh do you have one of the serial expansion cards with no RAM? Apparently it is possible to populate them with A LOT of soldering.
Regarding 19200 on the serial port, i can’t get a straight answer on how possible that is. I’ve read you need to hex edit a file which I tried doing but wasn’t able to get 19200 working. Maybe needs hardware flow control to work properly? But I’ve also read there were issues/bugs with hardware flow control. So not sure what the magic combo is to get 19200 working.
It is working. Not a slouch to be honest for FTP
388kbps is a lot faster than 9.6 no doubt. If rcp works then I can do some more stuff with the system, maybe I'll set up an rcp daemon on the SAN.
Is there an install file to get it to the latest revision of 3.51 and games like empire and such?
388kbps is a lot faster than 9.6 no doubt. If rcp works then I can do some more stuff with the system, maybe I'll set up an rcp daemon on the SAN.
Is there an install file to get it to the latest revision of 3.51 and games like empire and such?
shirsch
Veteran Member
I populated my serial board last year. Worked quite well, but - yes - it's a crap-load of soldering. Let me know if you tackle it and have any questions.
agentb
Experienced Member
Wow that’s amazing! Definitely jealous of that!
Regarding upgrading, if you have 3.51, then FIXDISK 2.0, which is two disks, will get you to 3.51m. I’m not sure the best source. Here are two options:
A good copy should be put online that installs through the normal method. Is the command to extract files from the CPIO on the disk or part of the install software on the 3b1? Which flags did it have?
Was the above just the drive or the full set of files to install. Wasn't sure if you also needed the 5 disk set that was discussed and if it was online.
agentb
Experienced Member
I’ll see if I can modify the ETHERNET+IN I made previously from the 5 dd’d install disks so that it installs properly from /usr/spool/uucppublic - hopefully it’s just a matter of +x perms on the Install file, and potentially pad the +IN so it decompresses properly with the -B param used on cpio, which I don’t know if “install from electronic mail” uses -B or not.
I have not attempted to use the 5 dd images to install from floppy. Additionally those 5 dd’s are not on bitsavers. There are no IMD’s of the Ethernet disks available that I’m aware of but @shirsch mentioned having them. That would be great to get on bitsavers.
shirsch
Veteran Member
If it helps anyone, here's my Libreoffice format spreadsheet detailing parts needed to build out a serial board into a memory expansion. I have not double-checked part numbers nor counts, so caveat emptor! Anyone taking this project on can expect to solder 1500-odd pins - AFTER clearing over 1000 PCB vias. With a good vacuum desoldering tool (like my trusty Hakko FR-301) the latter is simple but time-consuming. If you have only a manual solder sucker and/or braid this will be quite an exercise. Fortunately, Convergent Technologies used extremely high-quality PCBs so the potential for damaged vias and lifted traces is farily low. I would think that anyone with midrange bench skills could pull this off but I would not suggest it as a learning experience.
Thanks for uploading. I tried to open it in an older excel but it barfed on possible virus (probably doesn't like openoffice).
I wonder if it would be possible to just warm the board up on my Aoyue preheater then use the hot air tools to drop sockets in through the existing solder. So far though I don't seem to be RAM bound on the system, maybe I'll look into replacing the WD disk chip and going to a larger (and slightly more modern. Hah) disk drive.
I wonder if it would be possible to just warm the board up on my Aoyue preheater then use the hot air tools to drop sockets in through the existing solder. So far though I don't seem to be RAM bound on the system, maybe I'll look into replacing the WD disk chip and going to a larger (and slightly more modern. Hah) disk drive.