From owner-freebsd-alpha Fri May 16 09:52:18 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA07752 for alpha-outgoing; Fri, 16 May 1997 09:52:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from duke.cs.duke.edu (duke.cs.duke.edu [152.3.140.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA07747 for ; Fri, 16 May 1997 09:52:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hurricane.cs.duke.edu (hurricane.cs.duke.edu [152.3.145.1]) by duke.cs.duke.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA23881; Fri, 16 May 1997 12:52:10 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from gallatin@localhost) by hurricane.cs.duke.edu (8.8.4/8.7.3) id MAA02679; Fri, 16 May 1997 12:52:10 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 12:52:10 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199705161652.MAA02679@hurricane.cs.duke.edu> From: Andrew Gallatin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: Brandon Gillespie CC: freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: VM 6.22 under 19.15 XEmacs Lucid Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Brandon Gillespie writes: > On Thu, 15 May 1997, Curt Sampson wrote: > > On Thu, 15 May 1997, Andrew Gallatin wrote: > > > > > > Basically, what I'm saying is please try to keep the low-cost alternatives > > > > in mind. If FreeBSD was only available off the SRM console that means to > > > > use FreeBSD you would have to pay an extra wad of cash... > > > > > > Right. $75 isn're really a wad.... > > > > Also, would there be any licencing problems if a vendor with the > > disk used that to load SRM console on a machine before shipping it > > out? If not, there's really no extra cost. > > Yes and no. DEC doesn't care who has what media, they just care that the > license is paid in the end. So if a vendor pre-loaded SRM, they would > still have to pay it somewhere (i.e. they would just wrap it into the cost > anyway). Furthermore, its not that cheap! Some lucky sod may be able to > get it for $75, or there abouts, assuming that the company they are buying Anybody could be that lucky sod. Some of us sods w/educational discounts could get it for less. > from swung a sweet deal with DEC (which Aspen has :) However, usually you > are looking in the four digits for the SRM Console. DEC may have made the > Alpha which we all love and adore, but they LOVE to do one thing: charge > phonomenal prices for trivial things. According to Digital's E-store: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digital's Electronic Connection For assistance call: 1-800-DIGITAL Item Information DES_2_1505 QR-21B02-03 Alpha EB S/W Dev Kit,Frmwr V2 Adj. % Service: 1 Year 2 Years 3 Years Gross Net Gross Net Gross Net List: 75.00 75.00 Standard: Description: Type a command letter, then press B Commands are: Order Back Next Main Quit Exit -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (For non old-school DEC customers -- the 'E-store' is a price-list accessible via telneting to orders.sales.digital.com. You can apply for an account at the login screen if you don't already have one. You can order merchandise priced online via a call to 1-800-DIGITAL or via your local DEC rep, if you've got one. I've been using it for years to check quotes on alpha workstations & to order small things.). According to page 2 of http://ftp.digital.com/pub/Digital/info/semiconductor/literature/mbsdkpb.pdf (Alpha Motherboards Software Developers's Kit and Firmware Update V2.1 (Ergo, QR-21B02-03 Alpha EB S/W Dev Kit,Frmwr V2) Firmware: The firmware updates contain the latest version of firmware for Alpha motherboards and include the following utility and images: - Firmware update utility - Alpha SRM console images - Windows NT firmware images - Windows NT HAL images - Debug Monitor firmware images Firmware images are supplied for the following Alpha motherboards - AlphaPC164 - AlphaPC64 - EB64 (excluding Alpha SRM Console & Windows NT images) - EB64+ - EB66 (excluding Alpha SRM Console images) - EB66+ - EB164 < snip > The kicker is in the fine print, around the middle of the page: Except for Alpha SRM Console software, you can redistribute all of the kit's software at no additional cost. The Alpha SRM Console software is provided for evaluation purposes only. Now, I'd guess that would mean that a company could not ship the SRM console. However, I'm not sure what 'evaluation purposes only' means. I read it as 'personal, per-machine use' Any lawyers out there who know what this really means? > Also, there are some companies that have unknown/secret ;) deals with DEC > in that they CANNOT PUT THE SRM CONSOLE on their systems. Call Enorex I'll take your word for it, maybe they can't. But I'd bet any end-user could. > (www.enorex.com) and ask them if you can get a machine with the SRM > console. They will tell you no, period, nada, not happening. This is > because of a special deal they have with DEC which also has the side > effect of getting them VERY LOW prices (and thus passing them on to > you)--but they have to ``sell NT'' on every box (the guy said the Boot ROM > actually couldn't change the firmware somehow, and thats how it came from > DEC... dunno, coulda just been a sales rep's low knowledge :) Probably just had the f/ww update jumper in the 'no update' position. ;-) Drew