[wroteafaq]

I haven't done a comprehensive survey of my stock, but from the boards I've looked at I see four (4) versions of this firmware, judging from the part numbers:

070-8054-002

070-8088-001
070-8088-002
070-8088-003

The first (8054-002) is the only one that features the pre-boot logo screen (when monitor environment variable "console" is set to "G").

None of the three "8088" versions support the logo screen.

What I'd like to do is establish some consistency between the boards.  I like the logo screen (despite its slightly-odd slow rendering), but I'm concerned that, based on the part numbering, it's too far down-rev from the others.  Of the three 8088 parts, it would stand to reason that the -003 would be the preferred rev.

I'm curious whether anyone knows any more about this than the guesses I've made so far.

[robespierre]

The firmware data contains a revision level, similar to an IRIX version, and a revision date. You should go by those and not arbitrary part numbers.

[wroteafaq]

Of course - thanks for the sanity check. I'd forgotten there was a version command in the monitor.

The dates of the revisions follow the part numbers sequentially, so at least that makes sense.

But there is one inconsistency:

070-8054-002 V 4.0 Rev A HP1 Jul 18, 1991

070-8088-001 V 4.0.1 Rev C LG1/GR2 Feb 14, 1992
070-8088-002 V 4.0.1 Rev D LG1/GR2 Mar 24, 1992
070-8088-003 V 4.0.1 Rev C LG1/GR2 Jul 9, 1992

One would have expected the -003 part Rev to increment, but instead it crawled back to Rev C.
That's a little odd, but the rest is consistent enough that the right thing to do is update all these
machines to -003.

Too bad - I like the logo splash.

[jan-jaap]

Initially, the R3000 Indigo (HP1 CPU board) was released with Express graphics (GR2): XS, XS-Z, Elan, 8 or 24bits. Later, the "Entry" graphics were added (LG1, LG2), which was basically a dumb frame buffer. So the oldest PROM firmware (070-8054-002 V 4.0 Rev A HP1 Jul 18, 1991) supports only Express graphics, the newer (070-8088-00x V 4.0.1 Rev x LG1/GR2 MMM DD, YYYY) both Express and Entry.

Regarding the splash screen: the R3000 Indigo predates ARCS firmware. It's boot screen looks like this (this one is from a Personal IRIS 4D/35, but the firmware is all but identical):

   

[wroteafaq]

That's not consistent with what I'm seeing. The 1991 firmware works fine with entry (LG1) gfx.

And your picture doesn't show the SGI logo in the upper left hand corner of the light blue area, which is the "logo splash screen" I'm talking about.

I'll be taking a few pictures today, so I can post that if anyone wishes.

[wroteafaq]

This is the 1991 CPU firmware screen to which I'm referring.

   

(Ah hates cell phone cameras. Click on the thumbnail and the image reorients properly.)

[robespierre]

The logo screen behind the textport is found in other pre-ARCS firmware machines, too. It can be toggled on and off with "setenv sgilogo y" from the firmware command line, then "init".
It's possible that later revisions, needing to pack more support code in the same size EPROM, had to sacrifice the logo if space was running out.

[wroteafaq]

Ah, okay - they changed the command (environment variable) from console g/G to sgilogo.

[later]

Hmmm... that variable doesn't seem to work in the -003 ; as I play around I'll see if I can see where it got dropped.

Not that it matters or anything, just curious. You may be right about them getting tight on space in the 2mb part,
but the 4mb is still a 40p DIP, so if anyone cared the change to the decoding would be trivial... but I don't know
what the memory map actually looks like, either, so it could have been more about the space allocated than the
size of the device itself.