Tarl Neustaedter wrote:
On 2013-Mar-27 13:52 , Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote:
Lennart Sorensen wrote:
My guess would be that the sun4/1xx and sun4/2xx were not openboot, while the sparcstation and sparcserver models probable all are. So probably sun4c and sun4m were the first with openboot then. Sure is hard to find good details on these old things.
I've got a running SPARCstation IPC (sun4c?) here, and at the command level it appears to be a hybrid between OpenPROM and something older. I'd need to go back through my notes but I think there were some odd limitations.
I think the sun4m (SPARCstation 10, 20 etc.) were all OpenPROM, and the sun4d (SPARCserver and probably SPARCcenter/CS6400) definitely are.
The original sources for Openboot started in 1985, and it looks like they got formalized into SCCS source bases in 1988. The sparcstation 1 was first sold in 1989, so almost certainly had Openboot on it. Someone local believes that Openboot was the defining characteristic of the "sun4c" architecture, and that the previous architecture (sun4) did not have it.
Or is the defining feature the sbus+OpenPROM combination? I've got a /very/ vague recollection about the hardware being ready before the firmware, so the earliest machines were shipped with interim code- this was obviously long before Flash devices. I could obviously be totally wrong, but it would explain the odd mixture on the IPC.
I arrived at Sun during the sun4m architecture, which definitely had it.
Ah... I see an interview with Mitch Bradley (original author of Openboot) saying Openboot explicitly started with Sparcstation one:
http://howsoftwareisbuilt.com/2008/03/27/interview-with-mitch-bradley-firmwa...
Yes, IIRC I found his moniker embedded in the SPARCserver ROMs.
OT, apropos mesh networking mentioned in that interview. I use AWDS, and find it an utter PITA on account of the very poor support most Linux wireless drivers have for ad-hoc operation. Kudos to Mitch & co. if they've got an implementation working well on the OLPC machines.