Sun

bhtooefr wrote: and isn't x86 - it's ARM (although Linux, not *BSD.)

Netra X1/Fire V100/120 are almost (especially Fire V100 which D-EJ915 suggested on #nekochan, cause of possibility to attach cheap IDE <-> CF adapter) good for home router needs. There are good until you will produce very heavy bandwidth and/or run very CPU-load things.
Also be informed that onboard Davicom network chips create high I/O load on PCI bus, but since machine itself doesn't have onboard PCI slots and not so many shared device on this bus it's not so dangerous.

A 1.2 GHz Marvell Kirkwood is significantly slower than even an Atom. I wouldn't use it as a workstation, unless you wanted to run RISC OS or something, and there's better choices for that. (And, besides, the PogoPlug has no video controller.)

And, consumer routers are usually 200 MHz MIPS CPUs, although there's a migration towards ARM.

Work-wise...

sixteen or so dual-cpu Opteron V20z's w/4GB ram, running web application stacks (Python, Java and Ruby)... gradually getting retired!
six 2-processor dual-core Opteron X4100's w4-8GB ram, running various web services, a couple with StorEdge 3120 JBOD used as light directory or database systems etc.
three 2-processor quad-core Opteron X4240's w/32GB ram each, running our main Citrix Xen virtualisation pool
a single-processor quad-core Xeon X4140 w/16GB ram providing shared storage for Xen
and an ancient Netra T1 running as one of our mail relays

In terms of hardware, there's nothing much to distinguish between the x64 Sun kit and anyone else, really.... where it scores highly for me is the built-in, standard LOM and monitoring facilities which, IMO, wipes the floor with similar Dell and HP equipment.

Gerhard.Lenerz wrote: SS20, SS10, SS4, SS4, IPX, IPX, SS2... that's it. Except from one of the SS4s all Suns are running Solaris 2.6.

Some (4) years have passed since then and my Sun stack has grown considerably: SS1 clone, SS2, IPC, IPX, IPX, SS10, SS20, SS20, SS20, SS4, SS4, SS5, SS5, Ultra 1, Ultra 2, Ultra 5

I've probably mentioned that some time ago, but the one with the most historic value for me is the Ultra 2 which was the webserver for some of my projects in the early 2000s. Back then it was owned and operated by a good friend and fellow collector.

One of the SS5 is the latest addition, actually I've just opened the box. Seen an SS5 with CPU fan installed on ebay and hooray it's really an SS5-170 with HDD, CD-ROM and diskette drive.

I've picked up a few new systems as well since I last posted. I currently have:
- Sun Ultra 5: UltraSPARC IIi 366MHz, 512Mb, 20Gb EIDE Disk, SunVideoPlus, SunPCi IIpro.
- Sun Ultra 1 (200E I think, but sadly it was severely damaged due to the worst packaging effort I'd ever seen. Hopefully good for parts if I ever find another)
- Sun SPARCstation 20MP: 2 x Ross hyperSPARC 125MHz, 448Mb, SX + 4Mb VSIMM, 2 x 9Gb, SunSwift + WideSCSI, SunVideo, Sun PCMCIA.
- Sun SPARCstation 5: 170MHz TurboSPARC, 256Mb, 2 x 9Gb, TGX, SunSwift + WideSCSI, SunPC 5x86 (Missing the SPARCstation 5 badge sadly, but otherwise in great condition).
- Tadpole SPARCbook 3GX (110MHz microSPARC II) 128Mb, 520Mb HDD
Tadpole SPARCbook 3XP: (85MHz microSPARC II, 32Mb, 520Mb HDD
I bought these two 'spares or repair' systems from eBay. A bit of a gamble, as I didn't know if they had disks, RAM or even if they still worked. To my surprise, after finding a suitable AC adapter recently, both systems work. The 3XP had SunOS 4.1.4 installed, but its case took a real battering during transit. The 3GX is in good condition, has Solaris 2.5.1 installed, and was maxed with 128Mb RAM. They have no batteries (or covers), but still, its nice to finally own portable SPARC machines. OpenWindows seems so primitive.
- Sun SPARCstation IPX: 40MHz, 48Mb, SunSwift + WideSCSI, Sun PCMCIA.
- Sun JavaStation-NC: 100MHz MicroSPARC IIep, 64Mb RAM, 8Mb Flash

I still haven't managed to find a Ross SPARCplug or SPARCplug Solo, a JavaStation brick, or to justify the cost of a nice Tadpole Viper laptop

@emGee - I had thought 64Mb was the official max RAM for a JavaStation. Does 128Mb work ok?

kramlq: The 2.5.1 install set comes with a CD with CDE and WABI.

bhtooefr wrote: kramlq: The 2.5.1 install set comes with a CD with CDE and WABI.

Yes, I bought 2.5.1 media on eBay, and it has a disk with CDE and WABI for Solaris X86, SPARC (and also PPC ). But the Tadpoles have some custom connectors for SCSI and Ethernet, so I have no way to get anything on or off it for the moment. My 3GX also seems to have had SoftWin on it, but it was deleted.

Custom connector for *ETHERNET*? Ouch.

bhtooefr wrote: Custom connector for *ETHERNET*? Ouch.

Yes, it's a micro-AUI connector (the same found on SS5, but at least on SS5 there is an RJ45 connector so you don't really need the adaptor cable).

This is kinda like the Apple AAUI connector found on 68k macs... except AAUI adaptors are easier to find.

Ah, fair enough. My PowerLite combines AUI and both serial ports on some D-shaped connector that is smaller than D-sub, but it has RJ-45.

To figure out which framebuffer you have, see here: http://www.sunshack.org/data/fbfaq/FrameBuffer.html#3

Just got my first Sun " Hope I can fix it" Project.

Its a Ulrtra 5 with 64 mb ram, 4 gig HD, 270mhz cpu.............................................And the dreaded u13 boot error

Anyway, I'm not sure what OS it has as I'm not very good with Open Boot. Cosmetically its fine except one glaring issue, the top cover is MIA. However it looks like a fairly standard size so maybe I can yank one from a more common machine ( Common in SW Georgia means x86 running windows, this is only the second Sun system I've run across that isn't still in service, and third Sun overall).

Woo, I also got a sun!

- Sun Ultra 60 Elite 3D
- 2GB RAM (it is missing ONE memory module, maybe that is why is showin 1750MB)
- 2x 9GB HDs (I have a pair of 36GB I may put on that)
- 21" SUN monitor (CRT)
- Original mouse/keyboard (got it!!! But the PS/2 adapter is still on the drawing board)
- I don't know which framebuffer it is using (still on storage of moving) but this is surely a PCI/PCIX card (e.g.: Not using that slot more to the front of the computer)
- some external SCSI boxes, but no cables for them.

One of the drive sleds is broken, but I still can use it

As soon as I get in Rio de Janeiro, I'm crazy to see it working (sorry guys, Octane has a priority!)

Just added a bit to my collection. Currently I have SS2 80Mhz,SS2 40Mhz, SS5 70Mhz, U1 167Mhz ... I bought a ZX framebuffer to fiddle around with it works well with my 19in monitor but my 21in seem to be failing (I get an image skewed right and down and when X starts it dies). Sadly the HyperSparcs on ebay jumped up in price recently so I probably won't get one of those. I might be getting an rdi powerlite 50 if I can muster about $35 for the shipping.

Hardware I hope to have at some point: AG-10E framebuffer, sparcbook 3GX (so I can fiddle on the go ^.^ )

I hope the ZX/Leo documentation gets out of the legal review if it hasn't been forgotten in the oracle takeover... supposedly its been in the queue since 2008.

I guess some people collect this old sparc hardware because it is nostalgic for them.... I like them purely for the architecture though as I found out about sparc after it was almost dead (yeah theres a few LEONs floating around out there and Fujitsu is faithful to the architecture).

cb88 wrote: I hope the ZX/Leo documentation gets out of the legal review if it hasn't been forgotten in the oracle takeover... supposedly its been in the queue since 2008.

I wouldn't count on it. The doc project was Sun being nice to the community with pretty much zero chance of ROi, and AFAIK Larry doesn't work that way.


SPARC, like the guy in the M.P. film, isn't quite dead yet. Sun/Oracle are still developing the CoolThreads line, with T3 machines released recently. It isn't HPC, and it isn't going to come back in a workstation, but it's still around and good for some applications.

Heh... true. But apparently the do have the document and are just sitting on it for no real reason as the hardware is soo old.

Does anyone have any idea of where to find the openGL drivers for the ZX? I have solaris 2.6 installed but it only has XGL and I don't think its acellerated other than supporting DGA. TGS apparently had a "normal" opengl driver for the ZX but I can't find it anywhere.

cb88 wrote: Heh... true. But apparently the do have the document and are just sitting on it for no real reason as the hardware is soo old.

Does anyone have any idea of where to find the openGL drivers for the ZX? I have solaris 2.6 installed but it only has XGL and I don't think its acellerated other than supporting DGA. TGS apparently had a "normal" opengl driver for the ZX but I can't find it anywhere.

It costs money to make sure you're not violating any NDAs, and money to have someone scan it, and you're running the risk that there might be some proprietary information in there that could have made you a couple of billion dollars if it were handled right, and you'll be remembered as "the guy who gave it away".


Regarding the ZX/Leo drivers - they should be on the 2.6 disk (last supported version). Look for "leo" packages and install them.

While I'm no expert on the ZX I have read quite a bit of the documentation that is available on it and Solaris 2.6 does not ship accelerated OpenGL drivers for it both the OpenGL 1.1 and 1.2 implementations by sun are software rendered with direct memory mapped access to the card that is the only acceleration implemented.

I may have mentioned it before but TGS had an acellerated implementation of OpenGL for use with OpenInventor I guess. I haven't found any binaries though. The SUNWvts package (run /opt/SUNWvts/bin/vtsui or leotest manually if you know the options ha) on the sol2.6 supplimental software cd provides a rendering test suite for the ZX which I was able to run none of which was impressive really considering there are 5 25Mhz DSPs on the board it certainly should be able to do realtime rendering of some sort.

I'm pretty sure XGL (precursor to GLX I guess ) isn't even accelerated though I wouldn't mind someone telling me I'm wrong.

You could be right about the NDAs... but in that case what would stop someone from getting an NDA simlar to the developers that worked on the radeon drivers early on. I find it really odd that Sun wasn't shipping drivers that took advandage of this hardware as expensive as it was and relying on 3rd party.

While I have updated my sig, I haven't mentioned it here yet... This year brought a significant expansion of my Sun collection:

1) Earlier this year, someone in the town next to mine gave away a Sparcstation Classic and a U1/170 for free, which I duly collected...
2) When the sun4zoo in Germany closed down for good in June this year, I picked up a bunch of machines for free:
- Sparcstation IPC
- Sparcstation ELC
- Sparcstation LX
- Sparc Xterminal 1
- Sparcstation 1
- Sparcstation 1+
- Sparcstation 2
- Sparcstation 4/110
- Sparcstation 5/110
- Sparcstation 10 (with speakerbox... )
- U1E/170 with Creator
- U2/2x200 with Creator
- U5/400
- a bunch of keyboards, mice, micemats (yeah, the optical ones), spareparts, another SS1, SS1+ and SS5 for spares and other goodies (e.g. a new SBUS serial port extension - 8 ports, sealed in package)
Unfortunately, I could not take any of the monitors - simply no space...
I'm still busy going through this pile - so far, I've powered most of them on to make certain I retrieve all NVRAM data I can (several NVRAMs were already dead) and I've put an external battery on the NVRAM of the U2. The U5 will be failing soon, I suppose, as there are bulging capacitors on the motherboard - but then again, I only took it because noone else did... I'd love to do something with the ELC (maybe set up a diskless install and use it as a mail reading "terminal"), just because I think it's such a cute machine...

3) A while back, I bought a full set of Solaris 9 from someone - and got a free SS5/170 with it.

So, together with what I already had, I now have the majority of all sun4c/sun4m workstations covered - and a good part of the "old" Ultras, too (a U80 would be nice at some point - maybe even a U30 for completeness). Maybe not the most exiting part of what Sun has made (I've noticed many people like the Sun3's better for historical reasons and the newer Blades can be of more actual use, of course) - but for me, this collection pretty much represents what I have encountered "live" in my various educational/work places over the past 20 years, so I'm happy...

You wouldn't happen to have any *extra* optical mouse mats would you? I have 2-3 optical mice but no pads which leaves me stuck with ball mice X.x.