Sparc won't boot w/ serial devs attached???

[Alen Shapiro]

In article <1990Aug23.225050.9705 at rice.edu> david at msri.org (David Mostardi) writes:
>Is it *really* true that a Sparcstation 1 won't boot if there are any
>devices (say, modems) attached to the serial ports?  The techie at Sun
>believes this is true.  Is there any way around this incredible problem?

I found this to be true but only when my Microcom modem was connected.
The problem does not occur on an identically configured SS1+.  I did not
track the problem down with a breakout box but it did not occur when
either mac+ or Jasmine-Backpack modem were connected (to the SS1).  >From
what I remember, switching from ttya to ttyb made no difference.

The SS1 would break-out to the microcode monitor with the keyboard
disabled for further input during auto-boot at the point after the "dma0
at Sbus" message was printed. (obviously a new definition of auto-boot
that we have not yet come across :-))

When I reported the problem sun-800 did each of the following (in turn)

1) deny there was a problem
2) claim there was something wrong with my modem
3) suggest I disconnect the modem during boot
4) close the service request

I was less than happy with this response but that's another (longer)
story.

--alen the Lisa Slayer (trying to turn a SPARC into a flame)
    alen%shappy.uucp at crash.cts.com (a mac+ uucp host - what a concept!!)
    alen at crash.cts.com