🚀 go-pugleaf

Greetings all you hoary old ethernet experts 8)

I recently acquired a small pile of Bridge "Communications Server 50"'s,
which look suspiciously like 3com gear.  They're a 2-port terminal
server, based on a 68K with a 68681 and i82586.

Obviously, prime hacking material - the bootstrap monitor actually
looks halfway useful too.  Unfortunately, they attempt to network
boot in a fashion foreign to me.

The "real" software for them is obviously IP capable (several units
have stickers on them declaring their IP addresses), and would be nice
to have, failing all else.  3com's FTP site, and local reps have not
been very helpful, which is not _entirely_ surprising.

When prompted to boot, they emit odd packets; here is some output
from tcpdump (2.2.1):

spam# tcpdump -e -f -l -v -i ed0
tcpdump: listening on ed0
01:34:44.319497 8:0:2:1:a:66 ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff xns 114:
                         ffff 0064 0025 0000 0000 ffff ffff ffff
                         004b 0000 0000 0800 0201 0a66 004b 0000
                         0001 0040 5f63 7335 3000 5f63 7335 305f
                         7570 0057 6861

To date, I haven't been able to obtain any XNS docco to determine whether
this is their equivalent of a RARP or BOOTP request.

It has been suggested that this is actually an 802.3 packet and that
they are trying to boot from a Novell server, however as far as I can
tell tcpdump is capable of detecting such packets and printing them
correctly.

If you can answer any of the following in the affirmative, I'd like to hear
from you :

1) Do you have any experience (at all) with these units?
2) Any ideas where I can get the appropriate bootstrap software?
3) What is this packet that it emits?
4) Were you, or do you know someone who was involved with a company
   called Phoenix Technology inc. in or around 1987>?

Thanks for reading...
--
# mike smith : miff@apanix.apana.org.au - Silicon grease monkey        #
# "The question 'why are the fundamental laws of nature mathematical'  #
# then invites the trivial response 'because we define as fundamental  #
# those laws which are mathematical'". Paul Davies, _The_Mind_of_God_. #