On 04/02/2010 01:51 PM, adrian.glaubitz@googlemail.com wrote:
Hi,
as the subject suggests I have run flashrom on a DEC Alpha Digital Personal Workstation [1], model 433au. flashrom itself segfaults but superiotool finds a SuperIO at least.
Most DEC Alpha workstations are flashed using a proprietary flash utility which is run from the the SRM console [2]. There are several manuals on the net from DEC and Compaq which describe how to update the firmware using the original utilities, for example [3].
I have no idea so far how to enable/disable writing to the flash rom chips but I think it should not require any more magic than on x86 systems ;). Especially, because many of the Alpha systems are actually using Intel chipsets. Usually those Alpha machines have a jumper onboard which enables/disables flash write so there probably isn't the need for a specific board enable at all. Probably it's just a matter of finding the proper location of the address space of the flash chip in memory.
Hello, I am very familiar with the DEC Alpha's, and the SRM console. It was a hobby of mine for a while, being from New Hampshire (where they were made) and all. First Processor to hit 1GHz in the late 80's. For sure the first 64bit machine I owned (not from the 80's though). Anyways, I didn't do much firmware updating on them, but I would be glad to answer any general Alpha questions you have.