A 27128 (or 27C128,the CMOS equivalent) is a 128-k-bit ROM {i.e. 16k
Byte ROM} (I imagine he means an EPROM) - that's a Eraseable
Programmable Read-Only Memory for those not into "deep hardware." Many
Network cards (including the 3C509) include a ROM socket, so you can put
a diskless computer on the LAN, it boots off the ROM instead of a floppy
or a Hard Drive. (needless to say, it's a carefully written piece of
code!) You've probably seen EPRoms (the big, 40-pin Keyboard BIOS and
system BIOS chips on momboards - with a sticker carefully covering the
quartz window, to prevent erasure!)
You can (in this case) then access the LAN to load your code. (I just
put the HD onto a different computer's second IDE port, hey, anything
that gets the job done!)
Usually just works with NetWare, AFAIK it doesn't work with Windows
for Workgroups networking (I'm halfway hoping that it can work with a
Linux server, that could be handy some days!)
Mark Willis
R. Paul McCarty wrote:
>
> Mark Shepard wrote:
> > It has an ISA
> > port, however, so I burned FreeBSD's bootp/tftp netboot loader into a
> > 27128, plugged that into a 3c509 and the system booted diskless just
> > fine
>
> What exactly did you do? What is a 27128? and how could you do this
> without any disks for the bios to boot from?
>
> It sounds really neat, but maybe that's because I don't understand it.
> %-)
>
> -Paul
>
> --
> R. Paul McCarty / DARS Coordinator / 
/ x52059
> 317 Lattimore Hall, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627
> Computers don't make mistakes;what they do,they do on purpose.-Dale/KOTH
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