22 Jun
1997
22 Jun
'97
2:16 a.m.
[followup scattered throughout text]
On Sun, 22 Jun 1997, Paul E Coad wrote:
Sun hardware was damn sturdy. Their later servers - such as the
current E3000 and E4000's I don't think are really as tough as something
like one of the old 3/280's.... Man those things are tough and still in
production in rare situations. We have a 3/60 in production just to gdb
code because our 680x0 cross development/emulation platform doesn't handle
debuggers terribly well.
On Sun, 22 Jun 1997, J. Maynard Gelinas wrote:
[snip]
can be had as cheap as $70 bucks base. I know this isn't really on topic
for people looking for 4 and 8 bit computers, but you have to admit these
kinds of prices are significant considering what this box will do. Where
I work has several Sparc 1s and IPC/IPX's floating around still in
production. Most of them are bootp servers, X-Terms, or snmp log
grabbers. It's amazing that a computer that old is still so useful.
Hey this is on topic! I like the 4 and 8 bit stuff, but I really like
Sun machines.
Does anyone have a timeline for Sun machines and OS's?
No, but I think you might want to check the Sun Hardware Reference
FAQ available at:
ftp://ftp.ece.uc.edu/pub/sun-faq/FAQs/Hardware/
This contains good information about what's *indide* those old
boxes, and from that you can extrapolate pretty well about what time it
was released. It also has some quality system release dates, but is not a
complete reference for such things.
IPC bases have been going around here $99 from
dealers. Over the last
6 months the prices of sparc machines has dropped by 30-40%. Sun 3
systems can be had for prices which even I am willing to pay. It is
amazing to me that there are still so many around since they could
be used for trade-ins on Sparcs. The story I heard was that they
were ground up and recycled. This may be folklore.
A sparc 1 or Sun 3 base is about the same price around here. I
found a sparc 1 with an HM-4119 (Hitachi tube 19" color monitor), a dual
sbus cgsix, two 110mb drives (one of which was trashed by the famed
spindle lube gone - no spin up - problem), type 5 keyboard and optical
mouse, AUI to 10BaseT adapter, and 4MB RAM (that needed upgrading); the
price $100. What it lacked: a 13w3 to 4BNC cable (I obtained a 13w3 - >
4BNC adapter thingy for $20, because an original cable would have cost me
$120.00 and 13w3 to 13w3 cables are *everywhere*.
There are a lot of uses for older machines. Until
about a month ago
one guy in my office was still using a 3/60 for occasional work. Sure,
it was mainly used as an xterm, but it worked. Over 10 years old and
still in service. Anoter guy is using an IPX in the same way.
These things make *great* X-Terminals, especially since they are
very cheap, and the architecture is well known. You can find tiny X +
system kernels for rarp booting 3/60s if you want to go diskless, or stick
a cheap old boot disk on the thing. The Sparc 1s out there are even more
useful since they will run modern software - albeit slowly. I figure you
can get a functional X-Terminal for around $300 on average... at this
price you could put together a small office with a large Linux server and
ten X-Terminals running StarOffice or ApplixWare... cost? Software
included, easily under five to seven grand.
I have yet to find a single small office interested in this type
of setup, however. Since I don't make my living trying to sell this
stuff, well, that's no skin off my back. But I tell my friends with small
businesses, and those I wind up meeting at parties, or in Harvard Square,
attempting to set up cheap youth compute centers what a Linux box and
X-Terminals can do and how much it will cost. Few believe me. Oh well!
\_o_/
|
/ \
J. Maynard Gelinas