The collected works of gkl

gkl avatar
gkl
Who joined Aug. 13, 2009, 8:49 a.m.
and authored 59 notes
Wrote on the subject of Sun Blade ram compatibility at March 24, 2010, 9:22 a.m...
D-EJ915 wrote:
PC2100 in my 2500 board if I remember correctly but it is standard ECC DDR, super cheap and easy to come by


A word of warning--pay attention to your OpenBoot revision and the CAS latency. I believe all of these PC2100-based Suns are only spec'ed at CL2.0, which is a bit harder to find than the CL2.5 PC2100 ECC that's all over.

I've had little trouble actually running a Blade 1500 with CL2.5 PC2100 with OpenBoot 4.9.x, but upgrading to 4.14 or higher will prevent the system from booting on anything that's not CL=2.0. I had to downgrade from 5GB to 1GB for this reason :(

_________________
:Fuel: :O2: HP C8000, IBM RS/6000 43p 150, and lots of Suns in my collection
gkl avatar
gkl
Who joined Aug. 13, 2009, 8:49 a.m.
and authored 59 notes
Wrote on the subject of Sun Blade ram compatibility at March 25, 2010, 7:40 a.m...
dukzcry wrote:
I'm interesting what is practical memory room limit for Blade 2500 RED one?

I have a strong suspicion that you can load up a Red 2500 to at least 8x2GB. I've put 2GB sticks in my Red 1500 and gotten it up to 5GB (2x2048 and 2x512) of working, addressable memory despite the max being listed as 4x1024.

dukzcry wrote:
Can anobody also tell me about what specifially dictate the CPU difference in Red and Silver?

I'm pretty sure the only difference is a jumper on the motherboard. I would be very surprised if you couldn't put a 1.6GHz processor in a red's motherboard, switch that jumper setting, and have everything work fine. This is why I also suspect a red motherboard will take the full 16GB.

_________________
:Fuel: :O2: HP C8000, IBM RS/6000 43p 150, and lots of Suns in my collection
gkl avatar
gkl
From New Jersey, USA
Who joined Aug. 13, 2009, 9:49 a.m.
Wrote on the subject of HP C8000, PA-8800 1GHz, 4GB, FireGL X1 at Feb. 4, 2011, 12:16 p.m...
I just bought a HP C8000 off of ebay (for dirt cheap, and more are still listed), and thus begins my journey into the mysterious world of PA-RISC. Came with a PA-8800 1GHz, ATI FireGL X1 (256MB), and 73+146GB Ultra320 disks.

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Processors:
Active:                2
Total:                 2
CPU Version:             PA 8800 CPU Module 3.2
Clock Frequency:         1000 MHz
Machine Identification:  3662404977
Hardware Model:          9000/785/C8000
Kernel Width Support:    64


(March 2011 edit--upgraded to 8x1GB DDR-266 from 8x512MB)

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Physical Memory:         8197.3 MB
Real Memory:
Active:                293059.3 KB
Total:                 368693.1 KB
Virtual Memory:
Active:                512265.4 KB
Total:                 609681.1 KB
Free Memory Pages:       1456097 at 4 KB/page
Swap Space:
Avail:                 4096 MB
Used:                  419 MB


Code: Select all

0/2/1/0     mpt         SCSI Ultra320 A6961-60011
0/2/1/1     mpt         SCSI Ultra320 A6961-60011
0/3/1/0     hcd         NEC USB Interface
0/3/1/1     hcd         NEC USB Interface
0/3/1/2     ehci        NEC USB Interface
0/3/2/0     side_ba     CMD IDE controller
0/3/2/0.0   side        IDE
0/3/2/0.1   side        IDE
0/3/3/0     iether      HP  PCI 1000Base-T Built-in
0/4/0/0     gvid_core   HP-UX Console Support for FireGL Graphics card
0/4/0/1     gvid_core   HP-UX Console Support for FireGL Graphics card
17          asio0       Built-in RS-232 Interface
18          asio0       Built-in RS-232 Interface


Image

I had no idea these things are as large as they are, and they're shockingly silent given the fact that mine is pulling over 260W out of my wall just idling at login. Unfortunately the case is locked and I wasn't given the key, so I'll have to find some other way to open it up.
:Fuel: :O2: HP C8000, IBM RS/6000 43p 150, and lots of Suns in my collection
gkl avatar
gkl
From New Jersey, USA
Who joined Aug. 13, 2009, 9:49 a.m.
Wrote on the subject of HP C8000, PA-8800 1GHz, 4GB, FireGL X1 at Feb. 5, 2011, 10:25 a.m...
Dennis Nedry wrote: I've defeated a few locks like that on other various keyless equipment.


I knew this worked for bike locks, but I wasn't sure about these kinds. From the looks of it, the case lock is only a 4-pin (whereas things like soda machines have 8 pins), so maybe it'll be easy to break into. Worst case, I ask HP if they can send me a replacement. I suspect they issued the same key for all of their C8000s.

Of more concern now is that apparently HP patches are now for support contract-holders only, and a lot of their free software offerings (e.g., Firefox 3.5) require system patches above what came on the 11i base install set. I have access to OpenVMS and Tru64 support, but I suspect I may be SOL and stuck with the limited 11i cds and upgrades I have.

Alas! It's still a fun ride. HP-UX feels a lot more like IRIX than, say, SunOS 8/9 did.
:Fuel: :O2: HP C8000, IBM RS/6000 43p 150, and lots of Suns in my collection
gkl avatar
gkl
From New Jersey, USA
Who joined Aug. 13, 2009, 9:49 a.m.
Wrote on the subject of HP C8000, PA-8800 1GHz, 4GB, FireGL X1 at Feb. 5, 2011, 4:16 p.m...
Dennis Nedry wrote: Either way, it should still work. I had to deal with one of those (4-pins, super-cheap lock) on a keyless rack about a week ago. It took me about 2 minutes to pull apart a BIC pen and widen the end with a pair of side cutters. Jam the end of the pen into the lock, slowly pivot it around the tumbler axis while turning it in the direction that it opens... 15 seconds later, the rack latch merrily popped up and the rack was open.


Wow, this actually worked exactly as quickly as you had said. Took me longer to find a pen than it did to actually get the lock open. That's one problem down; thanks for the tip!
:Fuel: :O2: HP C8000, IBM RS/6000 43p 150, and lots of Suns in my collection
gkl avatar
gkl
Who joined Aug. 13, 2009, 8:49 a.m.
and authored 59 notes
Wrote on the subject of Cheap but Powerful UltraSPARC under $500 at Feb. 9, 2011, 11:38 a.m...
spoonified wrote:
Other nice little features I noticed with the Red 2500's is if you have the latest PROM on them you can do just about everything, mine only had a CD-ROM and not a DVD-ROM so to install Solaris 10 I was able to boot off of a USB DVD-R to do the install, but I can't do that on my V440, Blade 2000, or V880.

One potential issue with Reds is that their onboard SCSI is only Ultra160 (has the LSI 53C1010 instead of the drop-in U320 upgrade 53C1030 chip). If your application performance is disk-dependent, this might be a killer.

Unfortunately the 1.6GHz IIIi is about as fast as you can get for under $500, and that's not getting you very much. If it helps any, I've been benchmarking SPARC (and other) processors for a particular simulation app for a while and have the results posted here . I also have tabulated power draw for these machines if that helps.

For performance, there really are no cheap SPARC offerings. I find that I get a lot more performance out of my cheap X4100 (which I got for $50) than my 1.6GHz IIIi's (which cost me $160).

_________________
:Fuel: :O2: HP C8000, IBM RS/6000 43p 150, and lots of Suns in my collection
gkl avatar
gkl
From New Jersey, USA
Who joined Aug. 13, 2009, 9:49 a.m.
Wrote on the subject of HP C8000, PA-8800 1GHz, 4GB, FireGL X1 at Feb. 10, 2011, 2:47 p.m...
Alver wrote: Are you sure it's an X1? C8000s 'officially' don't support those (or they're missing from the docs), it's usually either T2 or X3. Also, the X1 only had 128MB, afaik. :)


It may be an X3 then. I kept going back and forth because some docs refer to the "high end" graphics option as X1 and other docs say X3. If the X1 is limited to 128MB though, I've definitely got the X3.

Alver wrote: Welcome to the C8000 club. Quick hint: pkgsrc on HPUX 11.11 doesn't run too bad.


I'll have to give it a try. So far I've been able to find all the software I need precompiled, although one visualization package I use for work (VMD) crashes out if I try to run it with OpenGL support. Compiling it from source did not look fun, but I believe there is a pkgsrc for it.
:Fuel: :O2: HP C8000, IBM RS/6000 43p 150, and lots of Suns in my collection
gkl avatar
gkl
Who joined Aug. 13, 2009, 8:49 a.m.
and authored 59 notes
Wrote on the subject of HP C8000, PA-8800 1GHz, 4GB, FireGL X1 at Feb. 15, 2011, 6:45 a.m...
Alver wrote:
But... like I said before... if you buy a huge 18-wheeler Kenworth truck capable of pulling 80 tons of load... why would you put a 14 year old behind the wheel, and never get out of first gear? Use HPUX dammit! :P


Amen! How does that quote go? "Linux is a great way to turn a $65,000 workstation into a 200mhz Pentium."

As it turns out, I was able to find, via Google, an HP FTP site where they forgot to take down the patch sets. I downloaded all 26GB of HP-UX patches "just in case," and my HP-UX 11i MCOE seems to be running fine.

_________________
:Fuel: :O2: HP C8000, IBM RS/6000 43p 150, and lots of Suns in my collection
gkl avatar
gkl
Who joined Aug. 13, 2009, 8:49 a.m.
and authored 59 notes
Wrote on the subject of HP C8000, PA-8800 1GHz, 4GB, FireGL X1 at Feb. 21, 2011, 10:42 a.m...
Black Cardinal wrote:
I just picked one up with identical specs, and I'm pretty sure from the same seller. I frequently used (but did not administer) HP-UX 9 and 10 back in my grad school days, and have an old 735 with 10.20 in my collection, but this is my first experience with HP-UX 11i. The CDE interface really takes me back. The FireGL X1 runs my 1600SW great at its native 1600x1024 over a DVI through the MLA.

Congrats! I wouldn't have guessed it'd be so easy to hook it up to a 1600SW, but the FireGL seems like a very solid and flexible framebuffer. Still, mixing an SGI 1600SW with a HP C8000 seems kind of naughty...

Black Cardinal wrote:
Unlike yours, my case was unlocked but didn't come with the pedestal. There are several available on Ebay, how important do you think the pedestal is? There aren't any cooling slots underneath the machine, but I find it hard to believe the pedestal is purely cosmetic.

I had specifically asked if the foot was included prior to buying since my seller only used a stock photo, so maybe that's why he was sure to include it. He said this:
Quote:
These stands are a necessity to the airflow of this machine. As you know they are very powerful and tend to run rather hot.

However, I have my doubts since nothing is really heat-sunk to the floor of the chassis and the large HDD fan blows intake air right over it. The bottom C-shaped "feet" probably keep it up off the floor enough if airflow is really needed; the only benefit to having the larger foot is that the tower probably will slide around since the C's don't have rubber or anything on the bottom of them.

The guy I bought it from did send me the chassis key a week later (in a very large fedex box, strangely enough), so it can't hurt to ask him if he will send/sell you the foot. It sounded like he had a few C8000's to offload.

_________________
:Fuel: :O2: HP C8000, IBM RS/6000 43p 150, and lots of Suns in my collection
gkl avatar
gkl
Who joined Aug. 13, 2009, 8:49 a.m.
and authored 59 notes
Wrote on the subject of HP C8000, PA-8800 1GHz, 4GB, FireGL X1 at March 13, 2011, 11:15 a.m...
Alver wrote:
Are you sure it's an X1? C8000s 'officially' don't support those (or they're missing from the docs), it's usually either T2 or X3. Also, the X1 only had 128MB, afaik. :)

For what it's worth (and for future generations), it turns out that SAM reports the framebuffer as
Code:
Overlay    Image
Config   Screen       Slot    Planes   Planes   Device File
ATI Fire GL X1(0-1)   Yes      galaxy:0.0   0            8       48   /dev/gvid0
ATI Fire GL X1(0-2)   No       Unused       0            8       48   /dev/gvid0

(under Display->X Server Configuration). Unless the X1 and X3 share the same id, it would appear that HP must've offered the X1 as the high-end graphics option, then later upgraded to the X3 and updated all the documentation to reflect that. Similarly, some documentation suggests that there was a PCI-based low-end graphics option from HP (fxe graphics?) that does not appear in the documentation that lists X3. There must have been two generations of these workstations' graphics options.

_________________
:Fuel: :O2: HP C8000, IBM RS/6000 43p 150, and lots of Suns in my collection
gkl avatar
gkl
Who joined Aug. 13, 2009, 8:49 a.m.
and authored 59 notes
Wrote on the subject of HP C8000, PA-8800 1GHz, 4GB, FireGL X1 at April 4, 2011, 7:10 a.m...
It's nice and quiet, so I have it out as my living room's UNIX workstation. I tried doing development work on it, but my understanding of HP-UX's libc and the HP compiler are still limited, and I can't get some of my code to compile correctly. It also pulls a lot of power and I've already got to worry about keeping the electric bill down though, so I'm afraid it doesn't see as much use as I'd like.

I'd love to use it more, but I've really got to put the time into figuring out how to build my standard UNIX software stack. Being somewhat of a purist, I'd also like to get the original keyboard/mouse with which the C8000 shipped, but I'm having a very difficult time tracking down any information on them aside from their HP model numbers (which are wholly absent on eBay).

Does anyone know anything about these input devices? I'd like to think that the C8000 shipped with a UNIX-style keyboard, but hell if I can find ANY such keyboards sold by anyone other than Sun (or the Happy Hacking Keyboard).

_________________
:Fuel: :O2: HP C8000, IBM RS/6000 43p 150, and lots of Suns in my collection
gkl avatar
gkl
Who joined Aug. 13, 2009, 8:49 a.m.
and authored 59 notes
Wrote on the subject of thoughts on RS/6000 43p 150? at May 12, 2011, 6:32 a.m...
There are a couple of RS/6000 43P 150's for sale on ebay for cheap (~$50 shipped to the US) and I've been really itching to get my hands dirty with AIX. The low price has me suspicious, but the 43P is quite an older model and I understand that it won't run AIX 6.1 or newer (coincidentally, 6.1 media is all I have). I'd imagine this detracts from the resale value.

Does anyone have any experience with this model? Any caveats worth mentioning? I assume that it takes regular disks (none of that HVD stuff), and EDO RAM may be a little harder to find, but I'm very tempted to buy.

_________________
:Fuel: :O2: HP C8000, IBM RS/6000 43p 150, and lots of Suns in my collection
gkl avatar
gkl
Who joined Aug. 13, 2009, 8:49 a.m.
and authored 59 notes
Wrote on the subject of thoughts on RS/6000 43p 150? at May 12, 2011, 9:26 p.m...
SAQ wrote:
Don't know though - it "doesn't have the Windows COA". Gotta be careful there... ;)

A lot of these scrappers automatically slap that on there. An Intellistation 275 that was local to me just sold today (way out of my price range), but the top question asked was "Can I erase AIX and install Windows XP?" It makes me wonder how many people actually buy up this stuff thinking they can play solitaire on it, then either throw it out or into a closet.

Quote:
Note that this is a 604e box, not the POWER3.

I'm not as familiar with POWER/PPC as I should be, but what exactly does this entail? Smaller cache and lack of full 64-bit? I realize this machine was marketed as an entry-level, and it would appear that a lot of Macs shared this 604e.

One last question--I found some AIX 5.1 media locally, but there is a listing for "AIX 5L Update V5.3" on eBay which is a 4-disc set. Did IBM ship 5.[23] as update-only media (like IRIX overlays) or should I expect to be able to install clean if I were to pick up one of these 4-disc 5.3 media sets? If I can get away with only spending $25 on a 5.3 set, it'd be nice to save myself the cost of buying the 5.1 set too.

Thanks for the advice!

_________________
:Fuel: :O2: HP C8000, IBM RS/6000 43p 150, and lots of Suns in my collection
gkl avatar
gkl
Who joined Aug. 13, 2009, 8:49 a.m.
and authored 59 notes
Wrote on the subject of thoughts on RS/6000 43p 150? at May 13, 2011, 8:28 p.m...
Thanks for the clarification on the 604 vs POWER3. PPC/POWER has always been a muddy realm to me since it's rife with a lot of variations and very cryptic names, so I guess I've got a lot to pick up.

I caved in and ordered one of those systems (my friends are a bad influence on me), so I'll have to see how far I can get with my 5.1 media once it arrives. It's a 5-disc set so I should be good, and I'll just have to wait for another set of 5.3's to surface.

Now that I've spent the next few months' soda money on this RS/6000 though, I might have to sell off one of my older Suns to make up for it. Maybe I can find someone local who'll give me $50 for an Ultra 10...

_________________
:Fuel: :O2: HP C8000, IBM RS/6000 43p 150, and lots of Suns in my collection
gkl avatar
gkl
Who joined Aug. 13, 2009, 8:49 a.m.
and authored 59 notes
Wrote on the subject of thoughts on RS/6000 43p 150? at May 24, 2011, 3:23 p.m...
As an update, I got my 43p-150 and it was in relatively good shape, although extremely dirty:

Attachment:
File comment: Dusty exterior, but all the plastic is 100% intact
blue-ext.jpg
blue-ext.jpg [ 253.63 KiB | Viewed 1835 times ]

Attachment:
File comment: I've never seen a machine with this much dust in it
blue-int-dirty.jpg
blue-int-dirty.jpg [ 435.05 KiB | Viewed 1832 times ]


It was advertised as having "NO HD," but it turns out the drive cage and crossbar to which it was screwed were all pulled out. I need to find a set of 5.25" to 3.25" adapter rails to actually mount a disk which is kind of a bummer since it's unlikely I'll ever be able to find a replacement cage+bar without having to buy a whole new machine. Oh well.

After some cleaning up:
Attachment:
File comment: It cleaned up nicely. Didn't do a complete rebuild, but came close to it.
blue-int-clean.jpg
blue-int-clean.jpg [ 436.38 KiB | Viewed 1832 times ]


Code:
glock@blue:~$ lsdev -C
L2cache0   Available              L2 Cache
aio0       Defined                Asynchronous I/O (Legacy)
cd0        Available 10-80-00-3,0 SCSI Multimedia CD-ROM Drive
en0        Available 10-60        Standard Ethernet Network Interface
ent0       Available 10-60        IBM 10/100 Mbps Ethernet PCI Adapter (23100020)
et0        Defined   10-60        IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Network Interface
fd0        Available 01-D1-00-00  Diskette Drive
fda0       Available 01-D1        Standard I/O Diskette Adapter
gxme0      Available              Graphics Data Transfer Assist Subsystem
hd1        Defined                Logical volume
hd2        Defined                Logical volume
hd3        Defined                Logical volume
hd4        Defined                Logical volume
hd5        Defined                Logical volume
hd6        Defined                Logical volume
hd8        Defined                Logical volume
hd10opt    Defined                Logical volume
hd9var     Defined                Logical volume
hdisk0     Available 10-80-00-0,0 Other SCSI Disk Drive
inet0      Available              Internet Network Extension
isa0       Available 10-58        ISA Bus
iscsi0     Available              iSCSI Protocol Device
kbd0       Available 01-K1-00-00  PS/2 keyboard
lft0       Available              Low Function Terminal Subsystem
lo0        Available              Loopback Network Interface
lvdd       Available              LVM Device Driver
mem0       Available              Memory
mir0       Available 10-b0        GXT2000P Graphics Adapter
mouse0     Available 01-K1-01-00  3 button mouse
paud0      Available 01-Q2        Ultimedia Integrated Audio
pci0       Available              PCI Bus
pci1       Defined   10-b8        PCI Bus
posix_aio0 Defined                Posix Asynchronous I/O
ppa0       Available 01-R1        CHRP IEEE1284 (ECP) Parallel Port Adapter
proc0      Available 00-00        Processor
pty0       Available              Asynchronous Pseudo-Terminal
rcm0       Available              Rendering Context Manager Subsystem
rootvg     Defined                Volume group
sa0        Available 01-S1        Standard I/O Serial Port
sa1        Available 01-S2        Standard I/O Serial Port
scsi0      Available 10-80        Wide/Fast-20 SCSI I/O Controller
sioka0     Available 01-K1-00     Keyboard Adapter
siokma0    Available 01-K1        Keyboard/Mouse Adapter
sioma0     Available 01-K1-01     Mouse Adapter
siota0     Available 01-Q1        Tablet Adapter
sys0       Available              System Object
sysplanar0 Available              System Planar


It's running AIX 5L 5.3, 375MHz PowerPC 604e, 2x256MB PC100, and GXT2000P framebuffer. I probably overpaid, but I can't really afford the $275+ price tag on every other AIX box out there.

_________________
:Fuel: :O2: HP C8000, IBM RS/6000 43p 150, and lots of Suns in my collection
gkl avatar
gkl
Who joined Aug. 13, 2009, 8:49 a.m.
and authored 59 notes
Wrote on the subject of thoughts on RS/6000 43p 150? at May 25, 2011, 4:15 a.m...
My secret weapon on the internals is Cyber Clean. It's a green goop that you slap on PCBs, fans, etc and pull it up, and it peels all the dust off with it. I get it in Canada and I think it's available in the U.S., but I don't know if something similar exists in Europe. It's meant for electronics and it leaves no residues, so it's great.

The externals are just a standard treatment of damp paper towel + Goo Gone where necessary.

_________________
:Fuel: :O2: HP C8000, IBM RS/6000 43p 150, and lots of Suns in my collection
gkl
From New Jersey, USA
Who joined Aug. 13, 2009, 9:49 a.m.
Wrote on the subject of boost and opencv on Openindiana. at May 25, 2011, 5:24 a.m...
Not very helpful, but OpenCSW has an even older version of boost (1.33.1). I've found those guys to be reasonably friendly though, so if you're desperate, it may be worth contacting the maintainer for his porting notes.
:Fuel: :O2: HP C8000, IBM RS/6000 43p 150, and lots of Suns in my collection
gkl
From New Jersey, USA
Who joined Aug. 13, 2009, 9:49 a.m.
Wrote on the subject of Stopping a SATA drive on OpenIndiana. at May 29, 2011, 9:22 p.m...
I'm not 100% clear on what you want to do, but if you want to pull a pool after it's written to,

Code: Select all

zpool export data1

which will sync everything and "offline" all devices within it.

As far as hot-unplugging disks, I do this for scsi disks with

Code: Select all

cfgadm -x remove_device c3::c1t2d0

This quiesces the scsi bus (c3) after confirmation and automatically unconfigures the disk after asking "has the operation succeeded?" I'd imagine the process is similar for SATA disks. Remember to do 'cfgadm -al' to show the disks attached to each controller and not just the controller.

After plugging in new disks, issue

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devfsadm

which will re-scan the buses and attach the appropriate disk driver (sd in the case of scsi disks), then

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zpool import

to list what zpools exist on the new disks you inserted.

I think this is what you were asking about.
:Fuel: :O2: HP C8000, IBM RS/6000 43p 150, and lots of Suns in my collection
gkl
From New Jersey, USA
Who joined Aug. 13, 2009, 9:49 a.m.
Wrote on the subject of Stopping a SATA drive on OpenIndiana. at May 29, 2011, 9:41 p.m...
PymbleSoftware wrote: the cfgadm command above reports:

Code: Select all

cfgadm: Attachment point not found.


I edited my post right after I posted it--try issuing 'cfgadm -al' to show the disks attached to each attachment point (controller). Then cfgadm -x remove_device on the full ctlr::dsk/cXtXdX *should* prove more fruitful
:Fuel: :O2: HP C8000, IBM RS/6000 43p 150, and lots of Suns in my collection
gkl
From New Jersey, USA
Who joined Aug. 13, 2009, 9:49 a.m.
Wrote on the subject of Stopping a SATA drive on OpenIndiana. at June 8, 2011, 9:26 a.m...
Admittedly, I've never tried any of this on SATA/SAS disks/controllers, and in fact the only reason I know about the -x remove_device option is because I stumbled upon this site

http://developers.sun.com/solaris/devel ... -text.html

which lists commands not in the manual pages. If you do figure out a way to do this with SATA, please do let the rest of us know.

I guess in a pinch, exporting the zpool will automatically sync everything, and you could just hard-yank the disk out, followed by devfsadm -C to tie up the dangling /dev entries. You may even be able to cfgadm -cunconfigure c1::dsk/c1t2d0, which is what the -x remove_device option essentially does anyway.
:Fuel: :O2: HP C8000, IBM RS/6000 43p 150, and lots of Suns in my collection
gkl avatar
gkl
Who joined Aug. 13, 2009, 8:49 a.m.
and authored 59 notes
Wrote on the subject of HP C8000, PA-8800 1GHz, 4GB, FireGL X1 at Sept. 6, 2011, 6:48 p.m...
Congrats! I am quite jealous of your PA-8900; those things always price way out of my budget.
thunng8 wrote:
a few Q:
- it doesn't seem to have an audio card, do I need to buy one? Will only the official HP one work or are there cheaper alternatives?
- it didn't came with a pedestal stand, but already seems stable without one. I'm guessing I won't need to buy one. Is that correct?

It seems like very few C8000s shipped with audio, and I've never heard of anyone using an audio card in it aside from the one HP shipped. This thread was of some help in trying to figure out the OEM, but as far as I can tell, the C8000 audio card was never sold as anything else. There are a few Philips-branded cards that look very similar that are relatively cheap when they pop up on eBay, but they use different audio chips and I have no idea if the HP-UX drivers will recognize them.

As far as the pedestal is concerned, I'm pretty sure it's purely cosmetic. It does make the machine less tippy and more sexy, but it doesn't help cooling or anything else out.

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:Fuel: :O2: HP C8000, IBM RS/6000 43p 150, and lots of Suns in my collection
gkl avatar
gkl
Who joined Aug. 13, 2009, 8:49 a.m.
and authored 59 notes
Wrote on the subject of Cheap but Powerful UltraSPARC under $500 at Sept. 6, 2011, 7:30 p.m...
The Blade 150 really isn't worth anything more than $25-$50 in my opinion. Although the higher-end version has a 650MHz US IIi processor, I've found that Solaris 10 desktop performs about the same on a 650MHz Blade 150 as a 450MHz Ultra 60. The 550MHz chip (or the 500MHz in the Blade 100) are just too slow for Gnome. The extremely limited cache of the Sun Blade 100/150 processors is crippling, so although 650MHz sounds good on paper, it's not going to perform nearly as well as a US II with 4MB cache.

With that being said, the Blade 150 does have a few things going for it, and it makes a great little web server. Here are the pros/cons as I see them:

PROS
  • very low power consumption. My 650MHz pulled 42W at full load, and went down to 26W after idling for a while. A Blade 1000, by comparison, pulls 210W (single proc) or 280W (dual proc).
  • very compact, and only weighs 35lb. Blade 1000 weighs over twice as much.
  • reasonably good case design, so it's easy to upgrade/mod compared to the Ultra 10
  • very quiet, but the Blade 1000 is also quiet (if you have Solaris installed)
  • has USB and an onboard framebuffer

CONS
  • it's slow. Solaris 10 + JDS (Gnome) run, but not very well. It's much better suited to running S10 headless
  • only takes up to 2GB memory (bad for Solaris 10+ZFS), and it takes unregistered ECC RAM which is harder to come by than fully buffered, ECC
  • ATA/66 (I think) controller is slow (faster than the Ultra 10 by a lot), and it can only address 128GB of space per disk. If you are feeling adventurous, you can buy ATA/100 controllers that are Solaris compatible, but they aren't bootable.
  • its peripheral PCI bus is 32-bit, 33MHz which means you really can't upgrade storage controllers. Various Ultra3 and FC HBAs are compatible, but the underlying system architecture is just not designed for high throughput

I guess what it boils down to is remembering that the Blade 100 and 150 were cheap machines. I think there was a time when Sun priced them at sub-$1000, and people got what they paid for. They're now 7-10 year old machines, so I think paying over $100 for one is really not worth it.

That being said, I just paid $50 for a 375MHz RS/6000 43p, so it might be worth it to you.

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:Fuel: :O2: HP C8000, IBM RS/6000 43p 150, and lots of Suns in my collection