ANS nooting

[ChristTrekker]

Does the ANS require attached video to boot like many old Macs do? I got mine set up last week then moved it back into its niche (sans video), but could never log into it remotely. :?: I'd chalk that up to misconfiguration of the network by me, but the front LCD panel seemed stuck at the initial screen that tells the system name, RAM installed, etc. I hadn't heard of this before, and of course shiner.info is down at the moment too.

 

[trag]

I don't know. Okay, I know that's no help, but I thought you might feel a little better if you knew that at least one person read your question.

I can email you a copy of the Hardware Developer Notes for the ANS, if you think you might find your answer in there. However, I doubt it will mention it explicitly, if the answer is no. Most likely, it will only be mentioned if the answer is yes.

Oh, you might wish to join the Classic Computer email list. I think if you google on cctalk and cctech you'll turn it up. Cameron Kaiser, amongst others, is on that list and he's a very knowledgable ANS user.

 

[ChristTrekker]

Cameron Kaiser, amongst others, is on that list and he's a very knowledgable ANS user.

Wherever I turn looking for Mac-related Unix info, Cameron Kaiser shows up.

 

[SiliconValleyPirate]

My guess is either you haven't had enough patience or you have a problem with the boot process somewhere.

ANS is basically an Apple badged IBM RS/6000 server. I know from using my own RS/6000 (and techfury90 will concur here I'm sure) that they take a long time (mine takes upwards of 5 minutes just to get to the initial boot screen) to perform the Power On Self Test sequence, because they do a thorough and exhaustive test at startup. As servers they were not designed to be power-cycled regularly, so any power-cycles were usually for upgrades or maintenance which both required comprehensive diagnostic on startup to establish if the messing around had worked or if it had damaged or disturbed anything.

Secondly it could be that somewhere the boot sequence or POST are failing. On true RS/6000s they display a 4-digit code on the LCD screen for every single stage of the POST and boot, so if it fails or stalls you can see what it's fallen over on. I do not know if the ANS had this feature, so I can't actually say to look for it, but it' an idea at least.

 

[ChristTrekker]

Well I know I waited long enough. I booted in the morning, went to work, and saw the LCD hadn't really changed when I came home that afternoon.

I'll try attaching a monitor again with the thing online.

Unrelated, but is there a way to make stuff display on the LCD panel? It seems to be blank (or mostly so) most of the time.

 

[macdownunder]

I'll try attaching a monitor again with the thing online.

You could also attach a terminal to one of the serial ports. I have never done this, but as I understand it, it is the only way to set up NetBSD on the ANS.

Unrelated, but is there a way to make stuff display on the LCD panel? It seems to be blank (or mostly so) most of the time.

Yes - under Yellow Dog Linux (at least) there is an LCDproc (? from memory) which is a simple RPM install. I just checked my archives, and I don't have it readily available. The source is from shiner.info and once it's back on line you can grab it.

Regards,

Macdownunder

 

[SiliconValleyPirate]

I guess that's long enough to wait

A serial terminal probably won't reveal any more than the screen I think. My guess is, if nothing is displaying on the screen at all, that the POST is failing. If you can't get an IBM diagnostic code from it to work out what it's failing on then I can't really help, as I've never used a ANS.