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Re: Genesis device: The emergence of Corvette support in Complex BIOS

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On 5/21/26 14:33, Louis Ohland wrote:
> So, does this mean that an adapter NOT in the ROS can be bootable?

Just guessing, but possibly if it implemented the right VPD.  Without 
being able to inspect the ROS (or whatever is actually doing this, IPL 
ROM?) we can't know.  The fact that the F/W cards aren't bootable on 
earlier machines means the IPL code was doing more than just a VPD walk.

> Kevin Bowling wrote:
>> On 5/21/26 06:50, Louis Ohland wrote:
>>> I'm not worthy.
>>>
>>> How is a PS/2 adapter's ADF converted into AIX friendly ODM entry? 
>>> Does that count as a "persistent nvram order" ? Just looking to 
>>> chisel an exception from the generic rules...
>> https://ps-2.kev009.com/rs6000/docs/ 
>> SA23-2647-00_RS6000_Hardware_Technical_Reference_Micro_Channel_Architecture_1990.pdf
>>
>> Pg. 1-73+
>>
>> https://ps-2.kev009.com/rs6000/docs/ 
>> POWERstation%20Hardware%20Technical%20Information%20- 
>> %20General%20Architectures%20-%20cleaned%20OCR.pdf
>>
>> Ch 2,3,4 are more illustrative but complicated.  There is enough data 
>> in the VPD to bring up any card directly in basic I/O mode (but who 
>> does it, ROS or IPL ROM?).
>>
>> Once the AIX kernel is up, it rescans the bus and has its own 
>> configuration routines.  The equivalent of a PS/2 .ADF file is the 
>> per-adapter ODM "add" file (e.g. adapter.mca.8efc.add for the SCSI-2 
>> Diff Fast/Wide card).  A PdDv stanza plus PdAt/PdCn stanzas listing 
>> the same resource menu (DMA window, I/O address, IRQ, DMA level, SCSI 
>> IDs...) that an ADF would present. These load into the system-wide 
>> Predefined ODM at install time.
>>
>>> Kevin Bowling wrote:
>>>> Note that the way these (early) RS/6000s boot is opposite of a PC. 
>>>> The ROS code enumerates the devices and selects a boot record from a 
>>>> default search order or a persisted nvram order.  So it needs to 
>>>> know enough about the device to do that.  That's why it can't boot 
>>>> the older systems.
>>

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Genesis device: The emergence of Corvette support in Complex BIOS Louis Ohland <ohland@charter.net> - 2026-05-20 22:51 -0500
  Re: Genesis device: The emergence of Corvette support in Complex BIOS Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com> - 2026-05-20 21:53 -0700
    It depends... Re: Genesis device: The emergence of Corvette support in Complex BIOS Louis Ohland <ohland@charter.net> - 2026-05-21 08:38 -0500
      Re: It depends... Re: Genesis device: The emergence of Corvette support in Complex BIOS Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com> - 2026-05-21 19:24 -0700
        Finally! A coherent question! Re: Genesis device: The emergence of Corvette support in Complex BIOS Louis Ohland <ohland@charter.net> - 2026-05-22 06:10 -0500
          Re: Finally! A coherent question! Re: Genesis device: The emergence of Corvette support in Complex BIOS Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com> - 2026-05-22 11:17 -0700
    Re: Genesis device: The emergence of Corvette support in Complex BIOS Louis Ohland <ohland@charter.net> - 2026-05-21 08:50 -0500
      Re: Genesis device: The emergence of Corvette support in Complex BIOS Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com> - 2026-05-21 11:26 -0700
        Re: Genesis device: The emergence of Corvette support in Complex BIOS Louis Ohland <ohland@charter.net> - 2026-05-21 16:33 -0500
          Re: Genesis device: The emergence of Corvette support in Complex BIOS Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com> - 2026-05-21 15:46 -0700
  Re: Genesis device: The emergence of Corvette support in Complex BIOS Rick Ekblaw <ekblaw@vnet.ibm.com> - 2026-05-21 18:57 -0400

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