[flashrom] flashrom on an Alpha Workstation 433au

Joseph Smith joe at settoplinux.org
Sat Apr 3 05:34:24 CEST 2010


On 04/02/2010 01:51 PM, adrian.glaubitz at googlemail.com wrote:
> Hi,
>
> as the subject suggests I have run flashrom on a DEC Alpha Digital
> Personal Workstation [1], model 433au. flashrom itself segfaults but
> superiotool finds a SuperIO at least.
>
> Most DEC Alpha workstations are flashed using a proprietary flash
> utility which is run from the the SRM console [2]. There are several
> manuals on the net from DEC and Compaq which describe how to update
> the firmware using the original utilities, for example [3].
>
> I have no idea so far how to enable/disable writing to the flash rom
> chips but I think it should not require any more magic than on x86 systems
> ;). Especially, because many of the Alpha systems are actually using
> Intel chipsets. Usually those Alpha machines have a jumper onboard
> which enables/disables flash write so there probably isn't the need
> for a specific board enable at all. Probably it's just a matter of
> finding the proper location of the address space of the flash chip in
> memory.
>
Hello,
I am very familiar with the DEC Alpha's, and the SRM console. It was a 
hobby of mine for a while, being from New Hampshire (where they were 
made) and all. First Processor to hit 1GHz in the late 80's. For sure 
the first 64bit machine I owned (not from the 80's though). Anyways, I 
didn't do much firmware updating on them, but I would be glad to answer 
any general Alpha questions you have.

-- 
Thanks,
Joseph Smith
Set-Top-Linux
www.settoplinux.org




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