From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-ID: <6f58a7d0444455d851829fc289704f0c@plan9.bell-labs.com>
Date: Tue,  3 Jan 2006 15:15:27 -0500
From: jmk@plan9.bell-labs.com
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] old alpha boot question
In-Reply-To: <7DD37218104E31429E79EB0BB136800E265E58@vargas.ntdom.cupdx>
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I think it was just done that way for convenience when debugging
the port. From what I remember, the Alpha firmware will happily boot
from a floppy if you have the layout correct, and the layout is
something trivial like a start address and a count of following
blocks to load.

--jim

On Tue Jan  3 15:10:14 EST 2006, BHuntsman@mail2.cu-portland.edu wrote:

> Anyone remember off the top of their heads why the Alpha bootloader had to be downloaded over TFTP?  Is there a good reason why it couldn't be started from a floppy (or hard disk)?
> 
> Last time I tried to get it up and running, the Alpha boot stuff didn't like being served from a non-Plan9 server...
> 
> ...and yes, I know the Alpha is dying.  I'm not giving mine up, though.
> 
> -Ben