resetting SRM secure mode on XP1000

[Ken Raeburn]

Hi.  I recently acquired an XP1000 from someone in another department
at work; I believe the original user of the system has left.  They'd
gotten it for running NT (now wiped, or never successfully installed),
and the console was set to AlphaBIOS.  I want to run UNIX (Linux or
BSD -- leaning a little towards NetBSD because I already have Linux
and Tru64 on other systems, and I'm using them for portability
testing), so I switched to the SRM console.

The SRM console claims that it's "secure", and won't let me do
anything but boot from the default device (disk).  Can't set
variables, can't boot from CD or net, can't switch to AlphaBIOS, can't
upgrade the console firmware.

Fiddling with the RTC jumper on the main system board let me wipe some
CMOS data -- clock zapped, console selection seemingly a bit random
(or maybe the CMOS data wasn't always zapped?), but I usually wind up
in AlphaBIOS.  I tried installing new HP firmware from there, in case
that might reset some parameters, and it let me start, but the
firmware update code appears to operate in SRM mode, and respect the
"secure" setting, meaning it only wants to boot an OS from the disk.

Pulling the battery on the motherboard doesn't help either.

I've also tried playing with the reset button while being prompted for
the password, as I've seen described for some other models, but that
doesn't seem to do anything.

It seems weird that AlphaBIOS would let me change some things while
SRM won't, but as far as I can tell, that's what's happening.  And I
can't see any way to control SRM security from AlphaBIOS.

I have since gotten NetBSD running on it, and could do Linux just as
well, by transplanting disks between systems.  So if there's something
I can do with a running OS (tweak SRM environment variables?), I might
have some more options for restoring access to the console.

Does anyone know how to reset this "secure" mode?
Any suggestions?

Ken