test-drb April 2005

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

269 participants
730 discussions

NVRAM contents, Save some Suns, and a question

by Arno_1983＠gmx.de

Ethan Dicks ethan.dicks at gmail.com wrote: > IPXs, IPCs, SPARC1s, etc., all suffer from one weakness... dead or > dying NVRAM batteries. There are answers in the Sun NVRAM FAQ, but > one does have to be aware of the issue before the machine comes up > inert (FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF MAC address) one day. Not quite. In some guide, I remember there was a "quick-and-dirty" way of assembling some bogus NVRAM info for Suns. Basically you only have to get the machine class designation right (there is a table for this) and you must set the manufacturer part of the MAC ID to 8:0:20, or you'll get complaints about a broken main board. The rest is totally free, so one usually winds up with host parts and serial no.s that read de:ad or c0:ff:ee or anything like that... On the other hand, Sun still maintains a complete database of the NVRAM infos programmed into any machine that was delivered. If you want to get it historically correct, you want to put those values back; in order to get them, you have to read the four (later: six) character NVRAM ID off the white or yellow bar-code sticker on the NVRAM. Then, the guys at sunopsis (The Sun Museum) can help you. My contact person there is ruediger (dot) frenk (at) sun (dot) com, he'll sure help you too. That is, if you don't flood him all at once now. While we're at it: Erlangen University in southern Germany is about to scrap part of its SUN inventory. There are (several of most types): SPARCstation 1, 1+, 2, 5, 10, 20, SPARCclassic, Ultra 1. The SPARCstation 1 come with mgone monochrome ECL frame buffers, matching monitors are available. 10's and 20's have varying processors. RAM, hard disks and drive sleds may be missing. Keyboards, Monitors, Mice are there, also additional RAM (mostly smaller modules than those currently installed, and a bunch of older Sbus framebuffers. Heck, even some FDDI Boards! I'd like to see as much as possible saved; they're free for the taking, but I'd rather not have to deal with shipping the stuff. Smaller items perhaps, but not whole machines or monitors. Counter-donations accepted - anybody have a SPARCstation 5/10/20 parallel port adapter spare? And a question to the gurus around: When going over the SPARCclassic systems, I noticed there are obviously two variants. It's the pictograms on the back side of the housing, next to the 26-pin Micro-D connector - one kind only has the networking symbol < . . . > there, the other has that *and* a speaker symbol (as on the SPARCstation 10, where you need the splitter cable and the audio box to bring out the signals). Both kinds have Line In and Out as two jack sockets, and the Sun documentation says that only the AUI part of the connector is used in the SPARCclassic: http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/SUNERGY/TrCOMM_SS_LX_10_AUI_Aud io_Port.html Anybody know if the Audio symbol was only put there erroneously, or can you really connect and use a audio box on these systems? Thanks in advance: Arno Kletzander Stud. Hilfskraft Informatik Sammlung Erlangen --- www.iser.uni-erlangen.de

19 years, 8 months

Trenton Computer Festival -- April 16-17

by news＠computercollector.com

It's time for the annual TCF event. This year, for the first time in a long time, TCF is back at Trenton State College. It's been so long that they actually renamed the college -- now it's called "The College of New Jersey". Alas, it's the same school. Meanwhile, for those who missed the earlier posting here, there's a new user group -- MARCH -- that's Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists. We have members from upstate New York to central Pennsylvania to Maryland, and everywhere in between. We're new, and TCF will be our first club event. About 10 of us will each bring a few ** working ** vintage computers to the exhibit, which will be located in a special room off of the main show floor. TCF's web site is http://www.tcf-nj.org and MARCH is online at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/midatlanticretro/ -- Evan K. ----------------------------------------- Evan Koblentz's personal homepage: www.snarc.net *** Tell your friends about the (free!) Computer Collector Newsletter - 700 readers and no spam / Publishes every Monday / Write for us! - Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all - W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news at computercollector.com

19 years, 8 months

NVRAM battery replacement

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

>Subject: NVRAM battery replacement > From: Saquinn624 at aol.com > >Ethan- the DS1287 is the one used in SGIs (I2, Indy), isn't it? how did you >go about fixing it? [e.g. where in it is the batt. &cet.](all of my SGIs are >currently working, but the clock is ticking . . .) I've repaird DS1287s used for PCs. The cast resin case of the chip is actually over a regular plastic dip package. The battery is easy to locate with a small magnet. Once located you scrape or sand the resin in that area to expose it then pry it out. The battery used is a small diameter 3V lithium cell and has a fairly hard steel case so it's easy to sand or scrape down to it but, not through it. The two leads are there and careful soldering will attach new leads to an external 3V coin cell holder. I've done this on maybe 10 of them. We had a rash of 486/133 PCs at work that were about CA 1998 and the batteries were failing (in 2002-3). Allison

19 years, 8 months

NVRAM battery replacement

by Saquinn624＠aol.com

I pulled the coin-cell holder off of an old PC clone PC board and then epoxied it to the top of the NVRAM- works well and will make future changes easy. Ethan- the DS1287 is the one used in SGIs (I2, Indy), isn't it? how did you go about fixing it? [e.g. where in it is the batt. &cet.](all of my SGIs are currently working, but the clock is ticking . . .) - Scott Quinn

19 years, 8 months

Parting out Laserjet 3s (UK) - anyone need parts?

by listmailgoeshere＠gmail.com

Hi cctech'ers, As the subject says, I've got 2 Laserjet 3s with no toner cartridges and "unknown spec" fusers that I'm parting out. They are otherwise complete, so if you need any parts for one, mail me off-list within 14 days else what remains of them will have gone to the dump. No charge, but you pay shipping or collect. They're located in Yorkshire, UK. Ed.

19 years, 8 months

Reviving Suns when NVRAM dies (was UNIX on old-ish machines)

by Saquinn624＠aol.com

Regarding resetting the NVRAM bits, especially the MAC number: If it has a disk, dmesg is your friend (on SunOS anyway, too lazy to fire up the Solaris box). The MAC address is saved in the syslog each boot. I seem to recall that the Sun NVRAM FAQ doesn't point this out, but it saved me from having to "invent" a MAC on my IPX -Scott Quinn

19 years, 8 months

New book

by stanb＠dial.pipex.com

Hi, I've just received my copy of a new BBC/Granta book "Electronic Brains, Stories from the dawn of the Computer Age", author Mike Hally. ISBN 1 86207 663 4 I've not read it yet, but from a quick flip through it looks like an interesting, non-technical, account of the early years of computers in the USA, UK, Russia and Australia. Just thought you might be interested... Interest in classic/old computers seems to be entering the mainstream these days. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this!

19 years, 8 months

LaserWriter Plus

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

You can buy an HP 4M Plus for under $50. This is a high-end printer, even by today's standards. It's 12 pages per minute, PCL5, Postscript, serial, parallel and it has an MIO slot into which you can plug in a built-in Ethernet print server. It's an old printer (they will be more than a decade old, probably), but everything is still available, it's based on the "EX" engine, which is excellent (the same engine is used in the LaserJet 5, by the way).

19 years, 8 months

Unix on old-ish machines - advice sought

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On Apr 8, 2005 1:37 AM, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: > Shoot, systems a lot better than those are free or almost free. I > got my Sun Ultra 60/2300 basically for free from a friend. Wow! I wish I had friends like that. I'd be happy for an Ultra5 for free or nearly free. -ethan

19 years, 8 months

Oscilloscope question

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

>Subject: Re: Oscilloscope question > From: David Holland <dholland at woh.rr.com> >I don't claim to be a EE, but FWIW... I am but, that means little. I actually troubleshoot stuff, in the practical world doing is the important part. Experience doing is extremely useful. >I believe that's correct. My (old) B&K was targeted for TV repairmain, >so its rating is a mere 10Mhz. (Analog TV is spec'd at a 4Mhz >bandwidth) My everyday bench scope is a B&K 20mhz dual trace as it's fairly small and warms up fast. I have no hesitation to use it for logic in the 20+ mhz range, however I understand how it behaves and what I'm seeing as a result. If I realy need to see more I have "big guns" for for the task but rarely use them. I do more with a VOM and cheap logic probe before I resort to scopes and logic analysers. Allison

19 years, 8 months

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test-drb April 2005