Motorola RiscPC

Post by Nigel Horne
I have inherited an old (1996) Motorola RiscPC. It has an MPC604
CPU in it and looks like it wants to run Windows NT.
Will it run Linux or some flavour of BSD? If so which ones and
how to I convince the machine to boot off CD?
-Nigel

Yes it will run a couple of different Linux versions. You probably have
what is know as a Power Stack. There is a NT 3.X that will run on them. MS
long ago dropped support. Are you coming up into PPCbug ? If so there is
a way to boot form CD using PPC bug. I owuld have to go dig out the
manuals to tell you how. The manuals are in storage along with about 3
Power Stacks.

Allan R. Batteiger

Nigel Horne

2005-03-06 22:51:14 UTC

It comes up into PPC1 debugger. It that what you mean?

Post by Allan R. Batteiger
Allan R. Batteiger

-Nigel

Nigel Horne

2005-03-06 22:52:31 UTC

A bit more, yes I see the word "PowerStack" during boot.

-Nigel

Allan R. Batteiger

2005-03-07 00:13:22 UTC

Yes it will run a couple of different Linux versions. You probably
have what is know as a Power Stack. There is a NT 3.X that will run
on them. MS long ago dropped support. Are you coming up into PPCbug
? If so there is a way to boot form CD using PPC bug. I owuld have
to go dig out the manuals to tell you how. The manuals are in
storage along with about 3 Power Stacks.

It comes up into PPC1 debugger. It that what you mean?

Yes that is correct. With PPC1 (debuger) you can tell it to boot using
device 5 I just do not remember the exact commnd. I think there is a ios
? os similar that will list the devices on the SCSI bus. You need to do
something like "pboot 50" (device 5 lun 0).

Allan

Nigel Horne

2005-03-07 08:59:25 UTC

Yes it will run a couple of different Linux versions. You probably
have what is know as a Power Stack. There is a NT 3.X that will run
on them. MS long ago dropped support. Are you coming up into PPCbug
? If so there is a way to boot form CD using PPC bug. I owuld have
to go dig out the manuals to tell you how. The manuals are in
storage along with about 3 Power Stacks.

It comes up into PPC1 debugger. It that what you mean?

I can't work out how to get the SCSI list to print. I went into 'run a
command' and typed 'pboot 50' and it said 'The file or device does not
exist'.

And when we're talking about booting, what are we talking about booting?
For example, will it run the latest Debian Linux/ppc?

Post by Allan R. Batteiger
Allan

-Nigel

Nigel Horne

2005-03-07 12:02:49 UTC

More information. The PowerStack is a prep machine. I have created
a floppy from install/prep/boot.bin from the Debian/PPC 1st CD and
amazingly enough the disc boots! Hurrah, that means we're on the right
track.

Linux gets as far as probing hda (hard disc?) and hdb (CDROM?), but
no further :-(

hda says resetting drive then no response. hdb says PIONEER ATAPI
CD-ROM when IRQ failed.

Then nothing.

Am looking for guidance to http://www.debian.org/ports/powerpc/inst/prep,
but it seems to want a PPCBUG> prompt, I don't know how to get that,
and it isn't mentioned on the page.

So I'm on the right track. I wonder if NetBSD
(http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/prep/) will install?

-Nigel

Nigel Horne

2005-03-07 15:58:23 UTC

Yet more news. I've replaced the built in IDE CD-ROM with a SCSI CD-ROM
and the system now boots off CD (escape 3/4 times to the menu, run
the debugger and type 'paboot 0 40').

The booting Linux still hangs at the same point. I wonder if I
should tweak the value of "root" at the Linux/PPC prompt. And
possibly other arguments as well. What do you think?

-Nigel

Nigel Horne

2005-03-07 16:47:24 UTC

Looks like Debian 3.0r4 is finally going on to it OK. The only pain in
the end is that the CD is IDE, whereas the machine only boots off SCSI CD,
and also Debian gets confused when it gets the IDE interrupt if I leave
both CD drives in (I swapped the SCSI CD from the Dell). Also the hard
disc is only 1Gb and finding spare SCSI hard discs won't be easy.

So now to look for a dedicated SCSI CD (the one I used in the end
was borrowed) and a larger hard disc.

Amazin`

-Nigel

Allan R. Batteiger

2005-03-07 22:17:21 UTC

Yes it will run a couple of different Linux versions. You probably
have what is know as a Power Stack. There is a NT 3.X that will
run on them. MS long ago dropped support. Are you coming up into
PPCbug ? If so there is a way to boot form CD using PPC bug. I
owuld have to go dig out the manuals to tell you how. The manuals
are in storage along with about 3 Power Stacks.

It comes up into PPC1 debugger. It that what you mean?

Yes that is correct. With PPC1 (debuger) you can tell it to boot
using device 5 I just do not remember the exact commnd. I think
there is a ios ? os similar that will list the devices on the SCSI
bus. You need to do something like "pboot 50" (device 5 lun 0).

I can't work out how to get the SCSI list to print. I went into 'run a
command' and typed 'pboot 50' and it said 'The file or device does not
exist'.
And when we're talking about booting, what are we talking about
booting? For example, will it run the latest Debian Linux/ppc?

Post by Allan R. Batteiger
Allan

-Nigel

Nigel
From the looks of your posts you have pretty much figured it out. I am
late checking the newsgroup today. I have seen SCSI CD's around they
tend to be rare beasts. I suspect Linux will let you hook up more
devices than AIX. With AIX you had to be carefule what devices you
hooked up. It would not work with just any device. I have a 9gb SCSI
hard drive that should work in that system if you are interested. It is
a 50 pin SCSI which is what those systems support. If I ever dig my old
systems out of Storage I might have to touch based with you to get some
pointers. Or if you want some more systems let me know.

Allan

Nigel Horne

2005-03-08 09:11:33 UTC