old NVRAMs - Sun MAC addresses...

From: David Woyciesjes <DAW_at_yalepress3.unipress.yale.edu>
Date: Tue Sep 4 16:22:15 2001

der Mouse ---
        I'm passing this message onto the ClassicCmp.org mailing list also,
since there has been some mention of SS1 MAC addresses here too. Maybe we
(the ClassicCmp list) can provide you with more data, hopefully enough to
crack the code finally!
        BTW, I also have a SparcStation 1 mainboard too, I'll just have to
stick that in one of the cases to power it up. Hopefully it still has it's
MAC address!
        der Mouse's original NetBSD/Sparc post about this is at the end...
Don't forget to include him in the replies...

--- David A Woyciesjes
--- C & IS Support Specialist
--- Yale University Press
--- mailto:david.woyciesjes_at_yale.edu
--- (203) 432-0953
--- ICQ # - 905818


! -----Original Message-----
! From: der Mouse [mailto:mouse_at_Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA]
!
! > I'll be inspecting mine tomorrow, to add info to your sample base...
! > Anithing else I should look for and report, besides the barcode
! > numbers and descriptions?
!
! The four pieces of info I'm interested in are
!
! 1) four-character code
! 2) barcode
! 3) MAC address
! 4) hostid
!
! Each subset of more than one of those is of interest; the
! more complete
! a subset, the more interesting. Obviously, I'm particularly
! interested
! in filling in the gaps in the barcode table and in anything that can
! shed light on the contents-versus-label mapping, but anything is
! useful; even just a 4-char-code <-> barcode sample can serve as
! confirmation of what I've got.


! -----Original Message-----
! From: der Mouse [mailto:mouse_at_Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA]
!
I've got eight old 48T02 NVRAM chips whose batteries ahve run down.
I'd like to reconstruct the MAC address and hostid values corresponding
to them; all but one of them still has its barcode sticker (and I don't
expect to get anything useful for the one that's lost its sticker :-).

Mark Henderson's NVRAM FAQ says that Sun can reconstruct this given the
barcode (or, possibly, the four-character code also prinetd on the
sticker), but does not say how. Is that algorithm known, or partially
known? If not, I'll volunteer to collect data points to try to work it
out, if people with still-good NVRAMs will send their barcode and/or
four-character codes to me with the Ethernet address and hostid that
correspond. (I've got only three live samples in my own collection,
not really enough to tell much from.) I'll also be looking at mine to
see if there is an obvious correspondence between barcodes and
four-character codes.

The newer sort, the 48T08 sort, don't need this, since the last three
octets of the MAC address are identical to the low three bytes of the
hostid, and are printed under the barcode. It's just the old sort I'm
interested in here.

Any information appreciated.
Received on Tue Sep 04 2001 - 16:22:15 BST