RISC6000 7007 POWERportable N40

From: Pat Barron <pat_at_transarc.ibm.com>
Date: Fri Jan 12 09:51:44 2001

On Fri, 12 Jan 2001, Truthan,Larry wrote:
> The "66" entry is invalidated in the 10 element diagnostic menu and the sub
> menues under each element. The initial sevice selection is "language
> select"). I havent tried "66" at the language select. On the first pass, I
> am not making headway with your suggestion.

Hmm ... I may be misremembering the number. On AIX 4.1.4, the "secret"
menu option is "41"; you might try that and see if you get anywhere.
I don't think I still have any 3.2.5 machines here, but we might have
one around stuck in some corner somewhere. If worse comes to worse, I
think we still have 3.2.5 install tapes, and I could probably drag an
old RS/6000 Model 320 out of our surplus storage (assuming we haven't
already sent them all back to our Asset Recovery folks for disposal),
and set up a machine.

> The spiral bound AIX 3.2.5 release notes speak of restoring the factory
> build by connecting the N40 ethernet AUI port to a Host, and mounting the
> N40 3.2 AIX CD on a host based cdrom volume.
>
> I assume the host must be another AIX machine(?) (Or can it be on an FTP
> server?) The release notes speak of command line "mounting" the cdrom
> volume over the link -not running an FTP client session on the N40.

To be honest, I don't know a whole lot about installing 3.2.5 over
the net, because we always did those installs from tape. I believe
that AIX 4.x can only be installed from another from another AIX machine
that has the Network Installation Manager set up on it (and the guy in
the office next to me thinks the same thing). Network installation
uses TFTP and NFS to bring things over, but there is also this "instsrv"
process which is the "network installation service daemon" that needs to
run on the install host. Even if you could do it, you'd have to
somehow extract from the CD-ROM, the network boot kernel, and put it
(probably) in your TFTP area under the correct name. Again, I don't have
a 3.2.5 machine handy, so I can't experiment with installing from a Sun or
something like that.

Oh, one caveat - if the machine has a SCSI port, you'll certainly be able
to do a "local" installation. But, some of the older hardware actually
checks, and will not install from anything other than a GENUINE, IBM BRAND
CD-ROM or tape drive. Does no harm to give it a shot, though - won't
hurt anything if it doesn't work.

> SO far I've not connected the ethernet AUI port to another machine.
> I was thinking of using the service diagnostic ethernet test menu to
> configure the IP addresses of the source and destination machines. Just for
> the sake of connecting the N40 back to a Win98 PC and "Pinging" the remote
> PC.
>
> Then perhaps I can find an i386 based version of AIX to convert the PC to an
> AIX host, to harbor the N40's 3.2.5 AIX CDROM. Then, proceed with that
> learning environment. ANY free or cheap sources for early i386 AIX?

I don't think there ever was an AIX for i386.

> I gather that IBM has dropped support for the N40, 3.2 AIX, and even some
> later versions of AIX. I am simply trying to make myself a small learning
> environment. From what I've seen this is a 6.9 pound network workstation.

AIX 3.2.5 is close to 10 years old, and is somewhat different from the
AIX of today. If you're trying to learn AIX, you might consider finding
yourself an RS/6000 Model 320, 320H, or maybe a 220, and run AIX 4.1.3
(at least) on it. That might be more useful to you in the long run.
I noticed that there is currently a 320H listed on eBay, current bid
is $51.00 .... Not that getting the N40 working is a bad thing, mind
you - I'd love to see it operational. We never had any of those here.

--Pat.
Received on Fri Jan 12 2001 - 09:51:44 GMT