8 Apr
2005
8 Apr
'05
4 p.m.
On Thu, 7 Apr 2005 23:32:57 -0400
Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
On Apr 7, 2005 8:53 PM, Scott Stevens <chenmel at
earthlink.net> wrote:
If you're too late (and these days you're almost certain to be too late
with those old boxes,) you either 'make up' a MAC address after you
solder the exterior battery onto the NVRAM module (there is a well
documented procedure on this) or you 'own' a block of MAC addresses like
I do (somebody had officially gotten a big block of MAC addresses for
some embedded project and gave out extra blocks he didn't need. I have
a block of 256 for my personal use).
Or you can find some ancient 3Com NIC, say a 3c503 or the like, 'retire'
it and and steal it's MAC address. Best practice, of course, is to know
the original MAC address to replace.
And IPXs are almost free these days. IPCs are
not only 'free', they
use give-away memory (30 pin 1, 4, or 16 MB simms).
Agreed, but if one has a source of 32MB (not 16MB) parity 72-pin SIMMs
(36-bits), a pair of them goes nicely in a SPARCclassic or LX, along
with 4 16MB 36-bit 72-pin SIMMs to load up the box to the max 96MB, a
respectable amount if one is not running X.
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.