looking for eprom info re 3c905b

Andru Luvisi luvisi@andru.sonoma.edu
Mon Aug 17 19:06:12 1998


On Mon, 17 Aug 1998, Donald Becker wrote:
[snip]
> Boot ROMs are special on PCI: the PCI definition explicitly handles them
> with a specific mapping register.  The BIOS is responsible for mapping them,
> and then copying the code into RAM before execution.  Since the hardware is
> simple, most of what can go wrong is in the BIOS.

do you know where I could get more information on this?  are the
header/checksum/other format details different?  do you know where I could
get a package to make pci eproms or the information I would need to modify
netboot to make them? 

I am currently testing on a DELL Optiplex XMT 5100 (in case that means
anything to anyone), but more importantly, the CMOS setup doesn't have any
options for configuring my two pci slots.  is it possible the bios on my
test machine is just too old and I should try to test on a newer machine? 

> BTW, where did you get a 3c905 boot-ROM image?  Are you certain that it's
> not for the 3c509?

I got the packet driver for the 3c905 (from the 3com ftp site), and used
it to make a boot image with netboot.  I have successfully used the
resulting floppy image (cat image.flo > /dev/fd0) which is generated for
test purposes, but I have not been able to get it to execute from an
eprom.

thoughts?

andru