Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cica!ctrsol!ginosko!husc6!rice!sun-spots-request From: rs@eddie.mit.edu (Robert E. Seastrom) Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun Subject: Sun 2/120: Problems booting from SIO-A Keywords: SunOS Message-ID: <611@brazos.Rice.edu> Date: 28 Jul 89 01:06:39 GMT Sender: root@rice.edu Organization: Sun-Spots Lines: 24 Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 8, Issue 88, message 11 of 16 My roommate and I have a Sun 2/120 with an external Ampex Capricorn 165 on it (the drive is newly formatted and has nothing on it). Much to my chagrin, when I tried to fire it up, I discovered that the monitor has ceased to function. "No prob," I thought, "You're supposed to be able to boot these machines by hooking a terminal set to 9600 baud up to the SIO-A port via a null modem". So that's what I did. I turned on the machine, with the keyboard and the monitor detached. I didn't get any output to the screen of the terminal (I understood I was supposed to get something in the way of a Boot prompt). Undaunted, I typed "bvmunix" at it, and saw the drive take off for about 15 seconds. Now, my questions go like this: 1) Was I supposed to get some kind of output on the terminal, or does that only start after Unix is up and running? 2) It crossed my mind that the RS-232 line driver may have died, but I couldn't find any 1488 or 1489 chips on the CPU board (where serial ports A and B are). If this is likely to be the case, what chip(s) should I be looking for? Thanks a lot... if you can help me, please E-mail, as the net has been gratuitously dropping my connections while I read news and I might miss your post. ---Rob