SRM firmware

The SRM console was initially designed to boot DEC's OSF/1 AXP (later called Digital UNIX and finally Tru64 UNIX) and OpenVMS operating systems, although various other operating systems (such as Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD, for example) were also written to boot from the SRM console.

On many Alpha computer systems – for example, the Digital Personal Workstation – both SRM and ARC could be loaded onto the EEPROM which held the boot firmware.

For example, the flash EEPROM of certain models of the DEC Multia, which was a small, personal Alpha AXP workstation designed to run Windows NT, was only large enough to hold a single firmware.

In this way the SRM console is similar to the Open Firmware used in SPARC and Apple PowerMac computers, for example.

When an appropriate disk boot device is available, the SRM console locates and loads the target primary bootstrap image using information written in the target disk boot block; in logical block zero.