Re: SS20 IDPROM chip

> The IDPROM in one of my SparcStation20s seems to have given up the
> ghost, finally.

> I do have another ss20 [...]

Any particular reason you don't just add external battery to the "dead"
one?  Do you have reason to think it's not just a dead battery?  You
don't feel confident enough to try it?  Not aware it could be done?

If it's the last of those, check out
http://www.squirrel.com/squirrel/sun-nvram-hostid.faq (and
.../sun-nvram-hostid.faq.html for an HTMLified version).  It has a lot
of other stuff, but it does have (at the #attach anchor in the HTML
version) instructions for adding an external battery to a chip with an
exhausted battery.

I also recommend stopping the clock whenever leaving a machine off for
more than a few minutes.  To quote from one of my SS20s:

nvramrc=: stop-clock f1201000 f 0 map-page 80 ff8 c! 80 ff9 c! 0 ff8 c! ;

(The magic numbers here are for a 20 and can be found in the
squirrel.com FAQ; I can also provide them for certain other Suns: SS4,
LX, Classic, SS5, Voyager, SS1+ SS1, IPX, ELC, SS10, and, as I
mentioned, SS20.  I have information that's supposed to be good for the
SS2, IPC, SLC, 6x0/MP, and SS1000, but I haven't personally verified it
for them.)

With the clock stopped your next power-up will take longer than usual
and you'll need to reset the time on next boot, but the drain on the
battery is reduced so low its internal leakage current is the biggest
drain.  Good for extending the life of machines that (still or again)
have working batteries.

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