Are Sparcstation 1s useless?
anon
even sure if it works. Is this thing worthless, or worth it to fix and
add a hard drive. What can you do with it, or is it too slow? Would I be
better off just running Linux on it? I have to get a monitor, too.
Thanks for any info...
I R A Aggie
<7k4j82$bb0$2...@agate.berkeley.edu> wrote:
+ Is this thing worthless,
Pretty much...
James
Guy Tal
you the equivalent of a SS5.
Guy
anon (w...@nowhere.you.know) wrote:
: My friend gave me an old Sun Sparcstaion 1 with no drive. I'm not
Peter Reeves-Hall
moment I haven't got around to getting them working (the price of 30pin
simms is getting ridiculos) but so far my investigations show that Debian
linux is one OS to go for as it can be installed via ~7 floppy discs (for
basic basic base installation).
You shouldn't need a monitor either, several FAQ's have said that if you
remove any video card it may have the BIOS will route all console stuff to
the 1st serial port, so just wire up a lead to a convient PC/Psion! and use
a VT100 terminal emulator to do all the installation.....
Peter
Rich Teer
> I got hold of serveral of these with 100Mb HD'ss but no memeory. At the
> moment I haven't got around to getting them working (the price of 30pin
> simms is getting ridiculos) but so far my investigations show that Debian
Try dropping t...@acara.co.uk or b...@acara.co.uk a line; they've got SIMMs
for quite reasonable prices at the moment.
> You shouldn't need a monitor either, several FAQ's have said that if you
> remove any video card it may have the BIOS will route all console stuff to
Sun's don't have a BIOS; it's called a Boot PROM (BIOS is peecee terminology).
> the 1st serial port, so just wire up a lead to a convient PC/Psion! and use
> a VT100 terminal emulator to do all the installation.....
I find the idea of using a £400 Psion as a terminal for a $100 workstation
wonderfully ironic - I used to do the same thing until I hooked up my
headless machines to my main workstation via a D-switch.
--
Rich Teer
NT tries to do almost everything UNIX does, but fails.
If it ain't analogue, it ain't music.
Voice: +1 (250) 763 6205
WWW: www.rite-group.com
Volker Borchert
|> My friend gave me an old Sun Sparcstaion 1 with no drive. I'm not
|> even sure if it works. Is this thing worthless, or worth it to fix and
|> add a hard drive. What can you do with it, or is it too slow?
I'm using one to provide DNS/Mail/Web/News services for my home
network. Works like a charm. "Set up once, run everytime" or
what was it that Sun used for a slogan? In other words, you set
it up, put it into the darkest corner, and forget about it, it
just works and keeps doing so until the hard disk dies of wear.
The monetary value depends on how much RAM it has. Barebones
would be about $25.
--
"I'm a doctor, not a mechanic." Dr Leonard McCoy <mc...@ncc1701.starfleet.fed>
"I'm a mechanic, not a doctor." Volker Borchert <b...@teknon.de>
Justin S Phelps
bootprom doesnt detect a keyboard it will redirect all console traffic to the
serial port, which can then be attatched a null modem adapter then rs-232/DB25
then a DB9 converter, which can then be attached to any serial terminal
emulator that supports vt100. (i.e., minicom using /dev/cua0, or the stock
MS terminal emulator using COM*).
If you are going to go through the trouble of installing an operating system
via floppy disk on one machine, you may want to investigate putting a
jumpstart (or whatever debian or RHL calls their net install equivelant)
image on the first machine and imaging the rest of the machines from there,
over the network. -OR-. You may want to not use the disks at all and have
them completely network dependant.
Peter Reeves-Hall wrote:
> I got hold of serveral of these with 100Mb HD'ss but no memeory. At the
> moment I haven't got around to getting them working (the price of 30pin
> simms is getting ridiculos) but so far my investigations show that Debian
> linux is one OS to go for as it can be installed via ~7 floppy discs (for
> basic basic base installation).
>
> You shouldn't need a monitor either, several FAQ's have said that if you
> remove any video card it may have the BIOS will route all console stuff to
> the 1st serial port, so just wire up a lead to a convient PC/Psion! and use
> a VT100 terminal emulator to do all the installation.....
>
> Peter
>
> anon wrote:
>
> > My friend gave me an old Sun Sparcstaion 1 with no drive. I'm not
> > even sure if it works. Is this thing worthless, or worth it to fix and
Fredrich P. Maney
[deletia]
: I have a $200 HP palmtop I use as a psotable console for sparcs and ciscos,
: damn useful.
Really? What kind/model? Anything special about it? This just sounds cool.
fpsm
--
| Fredrich P. Maney ma...@seventhfloor.com |
| President, Seventh Floor Communications, Inc. www.seventhfloor.com |
| 167 West Main Street, Lexington, KY 40507 |
| ma...@stdio.com ma...@maney.org www.maney.org ICQ# 5632845 |
=======================================================================
'An it harm none, do what thou will.
Patrick Stirling
> + Is this thing [SS1] worthless,
I R A Aggie wrote:
> Pretty much...
I disagree! While SS1/SS1+/SS2 may not have much cash value, they're
bulletproof. My old SS1+ is still fine after almost 10 years; the only thing
I've had to replace is the PROM when its battery died. You can stick a modern
1g or 2g drive (cheap) in and use it at a NFS server/ firewall etc. As
someone else commented, they just keep going and going (to coin a phrase!)
Secondly, to the original poster: please don't post anonymously to this
newsgroup, there's no shame in it!
patrick
James Zuchelli
Have you installed a 2 gig drive in a ss 1+? I've heard they won't recognize
larger drives. Also what about heat problems? I currently have two ~490 MB hd's
and sometimes it smells 'hot'.
I'd like to set my ss1+ up as a server so I can learn Unix better.
How much disk space is needed to install a server?
If possible could you cc to ja...@ix.netcom.com as I won't be on this job much
longer.
Thanks
James Zuchelli
Enrico Badella
>
> I disagree! While SS1/SS1+/SS2 may not have much cash value, they're
> bulletproof. My old SS1+ is still fine after almost 10 years; the only thing
> I've had to replace is the PROM when its battery died. You can stick a modern
I have a SS1+ that has be almost always up and running since 1989 and
never had the nvram problem (crossing my fingers). Could it be due
to the continous use?
> 1g or 2g drive (cheap) in and use it at a NFS server/ firewall etc. As
> someone else commented, they just keep going and going (to coin a phrase!)
The same machine has 2 IBM 2G disks inside and works really well
as a Samba server for a small No Technology LAN
I remember reading somewhere that you could build some sort of cluster
out of old SS[12] machines; anybody done it?
e.
========================================================================
Enrico Badella email: enrico....@softstar.it
Soft*Star srl e...@vax.cnuce.cnr.it
InterNetworking Specialists tel: +39-011-746092
Via Camburzano 9 fax: +39-011-746487
10143 Torino, Italy
Wanted, for hobbist use, any type of PDP and microVAX hardware,software,
manuals,schematics,etc. and DEC-10 docs or manuals
==========================================================================
Volker Borchert
|> Have you installed a 2 gig drive in a ss 1+?
I have. I even have 4 gigs both internal and external. No problem.
|> I've heard they won't recognize larger drives.
Old boot PROM versions can't boot from a partition that is not
totally within the first gig.
SunOS 4.1.4 and older cannot handle _local_ file systems larger
than 2 GB (that's why my file server at home is running OpenBSD).
It can NFS mount arbitrary sized partitions, but you'll have to
get GNU fileutils for du and df replacements.
|> Also what about heat problems? I currently have two ~490 MB hd's
|> and sometimes it smells 'hot'.
Many 2 and 4 gig drives run much cooler than those old Seagate
ST1480N (a.k.a. SUN0424) or ST3610N (a.k.a. SUN0535). For example,
IBM DCAS or Quantum Fireball TM series drives work just fine.
Don't use Seagate Barracuda drives, though.
|> I'd like to set my ss1+ up as a server so I can learn Unix better.
|> How much disk space is needed to install a server?
Depends on the operating system. If you're using an OS which
comes with sources, and plan to rebuild the OS from them,
you will need much more space than with SunOS. My OpenBSD 2.3
file server has a 3200 MB system disk...
About 500 MB for a complete SunOS 4.1.4 installation with spare
room for multiple kernel builds and preformatted manual pages.
The latter is very much needed because reformatting long pages,
e.g. make(1), takes a long time on these old machines.
Up to 400 MB for a complete X11R6 xc install with some spare
room for things like ghostscript, xv, ImageMagick, ...
Up to 600 MB for /usr/local, for GNU stuff like gcc (you'll
need that, because the bundled cc is pure K&R), emacs, groff,
TeX, ... (NOTE: don't use GNU emacs-20.x on a Sparc-1/1+/2,
it's waaay too slooooow)
If you want to keep the sources and build trees of all that
freeware stuff around, be prepared to allow at least 2 gig.
Allow at least 200 MB for /home, plus 100 MB for each person
who is going to use it.
As much as you are willing to shell out cash for, for
/var/spool/news ;-)
You might get away with a single 4 GB drive (I'd recommend
the IBM DCAS 34330 if you can get hold of one). _I_ prefer
multiple small disks.
T.Bluck.
I recently picked up an SS1 here in the U.K. they cost
next to nothing and make a quite nice learning tool, and
a usable system for non graphics-intesive tasks.
I have a 1GB drive in this system, and 16MB of ram.
I loaded redhat linux sparc version from a cd mounted on
a P.C. running linux without too many problems, and I
learned a few things along the way. the system is now
running as an in-house apache web server, and samba
server (amongst other things) and is good fun!
So the answer is no, the SS1 isn't a worthless system. I
for one think they're nice systems. and well worth the
desk-space !
All The Best.
--
T.Bluck.
The BOFH
> Patrick,
> Have you installed a 2 gig drive in a ss 1+? I've heard they won't recognize
> larger drives. Also what about heat problems? I currently have two ~490 MB hd's
> and sometimes it smells 'hot'.
> I'd like to set my ss1+ up as a server so I can learn Unix better.
> How much disk space is needed to install a server?
> If possible could you cc to ja...@ix.netcom.com as I won't be on this job much
> longer.
> Thanks
>
> James Zuchelli
>
> Patrick Stirling wrote:
>
> > anonymous rote:
> > > + Is this thing [SS1] worthless,
> >
> > I R A Aggie wrote:
> > > Pretty much...
> >
> > I disagree! While SS1/SS1+/SS2 may not have much cash value, they're
> > bulletproof. My old SS1+ is still fine after almost 10 years; the only thing
> > I've had to replace is the PROM when its battery died. You can stick a modern
> > 1g or 2g drive (cheap) in and use it at a NFS server/ firewall etc. As
> > someone else commented, they just keep going and going (to coin a phrase!)
> >
> > Secondly, to the original poster: please don't post anonymously to this
> > newsgroup, there's no shame in it!
> >
> > patrick
Some drives will not format on early machines under SunOs 4.x
If this happens take the drive to a modern system running Solaris 2.5 or above and
format it
there.
Keep the root partition small.
Make swap BIGGER than total memory of you will be running 4.x
No partition should exceed 2Gb
Now take the drive back to the old system and you should be able to install OK.
The BOFH
> Patrick Stirling wrote:
> >
> > I disagree! While SS1/SS1+/SS2 may not have much cash value, they're
> > bulletproof. My old SS1+ is still fine after almost 10 years; the only thing
> > I've had to replace is the PROM when its battery died. You can stick a modern
>
> I have a SS1+ that has be almost always up and running since 1989 and
> never had the nvram problem (crossing my fingers). Could it be due
> to the continous use?
>
The NVRAM battery is only used when the system is switched off, so in your case it
will last
for it's shelf life.
Most NVRAM problems are discovered after a system has been unused for several
months.
Michael Coughlin
Unfortunately the shelf life of the NVRAM battery is 10
years or less. Also the shelf life depends on storage
temperature. It goes down as the temperature goes up. So I'd
worry that the computer will not boot if it is turned off. Write
down the serial number or ID number and the eithernet address so
you'll be able to re-enter them in a new NVRAM when the old one
dies.
--
Michael Coughlin m-cou...@ne.mediaone.net Cambridge, MA USA