Thread
SPARC
Wheee! A SPARCstation IPX for $0.99+ship. Loaded up with three 72 pin RAM sticks (with 32 chips stuffed onto each one).
Now the internal struggle begins - NetBSD or gut it and Mac it ....
Now the internal struggle begins - NetBSD or gut it and Mac it ....
Nice find! I love those lunch boxes.
What do you mean by "mac it"?
What do you mean by "mac it"?
I mean use it as a case for a Mac motherboard.
Heh. Now I have a pretty neat little Sun box collection.
Heh. Now I have a pretty neat little Sun box collection.
Cool. I just dug my SparcClassic out and am trying to decide what I want to do with it. It powers up, but I can't really test it because I don't have a Sun monitor or a 13W3 adapter. I think the Sun keyboard and mouse are also proprietary. 
On the bright side, the old lunchboxes use 50 pin SCSI devices, so if you have a lot of stuff leftover from old Macs, it might work on the Sun if the Apple ROM chip doesn't decide to get in the way.
On the bright side, the old lunchboxes use 50 pin SCSI devices, so if you have a lot of stuff leftover from old Macs, it might work on the Sun if the Apple ROM chip doesn't decide to get in the way.
Last night I tried to install Solaris 10 on the Ultra 5 I mentioned a couple weeks ago. Well, now I think I know why I got it as a freebie: the CD drive seems to have problems. I could start the installation fine from disk 1, but disk 2 gave me fits - all kinds of errors. If I skipped it and went to 3, I had the same problem. I reburned disk 2 at slower speed but had the same problem.
I will probably try a more basic install just to get up and running, and then upgrade to a more complete system once I can log in. I would think that would be possible; I am no Solaris expert.
I will probably try a more basic install just to get up and running, and then upgrade to a more complete system once I can log in. I would think that would be possible; I am no Solaris expert.
These old machines are slow, too. While you can technically install Solaris 9 on them if you have enough memory and hard drive space, the CPU's are just too slow. A single 50mhz 32-bit microSparc, like in my Classic, just doesn't have the oomph of a multi-processor 64-bit UltraSparc machine. It's like comparing a Powermac 6100/60 to an octocore Mac Pro.
ive got a sparc 20 running solaris 9 with 256mb ram
http://www.obsolyte.com/sun_ipx/
Bunsen, here's some info about the IPX if you need.
Heh, I found out yours my not be able to go as high as 9 as it is an older architecture than the Classic. I haven't found any definite links as to how far you can take it, though. NetBSD or a version of Linux compiled for Sparc might be a good bet.
Bunsen, here's some info about the IPX if you need.
Heh, I found out yours my not be able to go as high as 9 as it is an older architecture than the Classic. I haven't found any definite links as to how far you can take it, though. NetBSD or a version of Linux compiled for Sparc might be a good bet.
Or SunOS with OpenStep?
There's a thought ...