Re: [PATCH v2 00/29] at24: remove at24_platform_data

Lukas Wunner
2018-10-04T03:20:44Z

On Wed, Oct 03, 2018 at 10:15:23PM +0200, Bartosz Golaszewski wrote:
> The only user of arch_get_platform_mac_address() is sparc. It returns
> an address that seems to be read from some kind of EEPROM. I'm not
> familiar with this arch though. I'm wondering if we could somehow
> seamlessly remove this call and then convert all users of
> eth_platform_get_mac_address() to using device_get_mac_address()?

My recollection is that '90s SparcStations had a battery-backed memory
containing the MAC address. When the battery wore out, the machine
would fail to boot because the address was either all ones or all zeros.
I recall setting the MAC address in that memory using Forth from the
boot prompt. Ah, the good old days!