Re: GS Appletalk troubles

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

John E. Townsend <utownje@lexis-nexis.com> wrote:

>    * ROM 3 IIgs with 8M RAM (7M CV RAM card in MEM slot). Self-test is
>      OK.
>    * RamFAST rev D 3.01e ROM with 1M cache in slot 7
>    * SuperDrive 3.5" disk controller (with two FDHD drives) in slot 5
>    * Clean startup disk with nothing but GS/OS 6.0.1 and the RamFAST
>      driver

Judging by the subsequent description, you must have the AppleTalk
software installed as well - it is not there on the standard system
disk.  You didn't say where you are booting from - presumably the
RamFast?

How was the software set up?  Ideally you should have started with no
system folder, booted the Install disk, gone into Customize, installed
"*System 6: Hard Disk or FDHD", then added "Network: AppleShare"
(assuming you are booting from the hard drive, though I expect it would
also fit on a high density 3.5" disk).

> What happens is that the system pretty much hangs when I boot GS/OS:
> the red progress meter marches all the way to the right, but absolutely
> nothing happens (and no Init icons appear at the bottom).

That is inconclusive, since the updating of the progress bar is done via
a timer tick interrupt, and will keep going as long as interrupts aren't
locked out.

Incidentally, how long did you wait?  Some AppleTalk configuration
problems might take something in the order of a minute to resolve.

> If I press a key and watch the text screen of the various modules
> loading, it stops at the ProDOS FST without indicating any errors.

My reasonably fully loaded system pauses for a while after the ProDOS
FST, then goes on to display the other FSTs (including Character FST,
which must always be there) before asking me to press space bar to
continue.  I then get a few of the INITs being displayed.

The ProDOS FST is loaded first because it is the boot FST.

The complication is that the boot sequence does NOT display drivers as
they are loaded.  I'm pretty sure this is the long pause I see - I
remember reading in early GS/OS developer documentation that the boot
FST is loaded after GS/OS is up and running, then the various drivers
are loaded or generated as required, then the rest of the FSTs are
brought in.

In the case of AppleTalk, we have the supervisory driver for the SCC
(SCC.Manager), which doesn't do anything significant, and the randomly
organised AppleTalk drivers:

AppleTalk (the Print Manager driver - not used during boot).

ATalk (the GS/OS AppleTalk driver).

ATP1.ATROM and ATP2.ATRAM (patch files and extra bits of AppleTalk,
mostly needed on the ROM 1, since ROM 3 has nearly all of AppleTalk in
ROM).

The "ATalk" driver is probably responsible for initializing the
AppleTalk protocol stack (including loading the patches as needed),
processing the ATINIT file, etc.  This will involve some initial
communication over the network to establish the LocalTalk node address
and locate a router if one is present.

The next major component is the AppleShare FST.  Once it is loaded,
network volumes that were marked for mounting at startup can be
remounted.  I'm not sure when this get done, or where this information
is stored, but you didn't get this far judging by the displayed
messages.

The ATResponder INIT gets loaded at a later point, but it doesn't do
very much of interest.  I think it provides the AppleTalk echo protocol
implementation (responder end), and it registers a name so that the
machine can be detected by network management tools.  The name
registration requires more LocalTalk communication (to see if the name
already exists).

I am lucky enough to have some Phonenet clone adaptors with indicator
lights on them.  Observing them during the IIgs boot sequence, I can see
a major burst of activity near the end of the pause between the ProDOS
and Character FSTs.  This burst takes at least a second of nearly
continuous communication.  This would correspond to the ATalk driver
being loaded and initializing AppleTalk.  There are a few more blips
when ATResponder is fired up.

If I turn on the "mount volume at startup" option, I can see another
burst of activity right at the end of the boot sequence, before the
startup application is launched.

> This only happens if slot 1 or 2 is configured for Appletalk *and* a
> connector is plugged
> into the corresponding port.  Here's what else I've figured out:
> 
>    * The ports work just fine for direct connections to a modem or
>      printer.

This shows that transmit and receive are working correctly, presumably
with flow control.  It doesn't rule out a hardware problem, but covers
90% of the possible faults.

The only remaining issues are the transmit enable (the second flow
control signal, not available externally), the balanced transmit/receive
operation, or a weird fault within the SCC chip that is preventing some
modes from working.  Any problems with the former two would prevent
AppleTalk communication from working, but wouldn't cause a hang.  The
latter doesn't seem at all likely.

> Anybody have any ideas?  I'm all out, except for trading in the
> motherboard.  Thanks!

My guess is that there is something is the battery RAM that is stuffing
up the LocalTalk protocol, preventing it from working properly.