20 Jan
2007
20 Jan
'07
12:38 a.m.
So I get this pair of free SS20s today at the weekly geek lunch at the
Chinese restaurant down the street - one nice, clean one, and one
that, um... well... was corroded inside due to an unfortunate meeting
with a dog, I'm told. I stripped down the soiled unit before I even
got home to recover a (clean) 1"-tall Toshiba SCSI CD-ROM, two (clean)
SM50 processor modules, and a mixed pile of DIMMs with some corrosion
on the fingers. The motherboard was a total loss, as was the chassis.
I have washed and brushed the SIMMs, a mix of 8MB and 32MB - not sure
about a couple of them, but most seem to be visually intact. I was
planning on an alkalai wash before testing them.
The other box being clean made it a good candidate to boot up... it
had a single SM50 (now two), 48MB of RAM, a TGX framebuffer, and an
internal SCSI drive of a type I'd never seen before. I had to google
it - an ST5660NC. I was surprised to confirm that even though it was
an SCA-connector drive, it was a whopping 545MB, and *narrow* (thus
the "NC"). I didn't know anyone made a) SCA drives below 1GB, and b)
narrow SCSI SCA drives. I think the drive bracket is probably one of
the most expensive things in the box, really.
I think there was some recent list traffic about using an SS20 as,
essentially, an X terminal with that optional internal frame buffer,
but since I don't have one, I'm thinking "headless server". Not as
powerful as the cheapest of "haul-it-away" commodity boxes, but
substantially more robust. At least I'd expect this box to stay up
for 6 months at a time.
At least it runs Solaris 9.
-ethan
20 Jan
20 Jan
1:06 a.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan.dicks at gmail.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2007 12:38 AM
Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20
So I get this pair of free SS20s today at the weekly
geek lunch at the
Chinese restaurant down the street - one nice, clean one, and one
that, um... well... was corroded inside due to an unfortunate meeting
with a dog, I'm told.
I was wondering what you people think about machines that have been used as
a latrine by animals, do you clean them up or toss them?
While looking around for a spare Mac IIfx I ran across a person who had a
Mac IIx (he thought it was a IIfx) with a DOVE accelerator card in it and
the pictures he sent looked decent from the outside (Mac IIs tend to
discolor badly). Once he opened it up he found out a mouse had made a nest
and used it for a latrine. The guy said he would clean it up, but while I
have dealt with some smokers tar and dust bunnies that look older then I am
I never had to deal with pee and poo in a machine before.
So what do you guys do in a situation where this has happened? How toxic
would the bodily fluids be to chips and circuit boards? I hear rat excrement
can carry some nasty deadly diseases. Any opinions?
TZ
1:34 a.m.
On 20 Jan 2007 at 1:06, Teo Zenios wrote:
I was wondering what you people think about machines
that have been used as
a latrine by animals, do you clean them up or toss them?
I once owned a very sneaky tomcat. He made one of my PCB's a place to
leave his calling card--and I didn't discover it for about a year.
By the time I got to it, the urine had corroded the copper right off
the substrate in places.
I threw it out. I don't own cats anymore.
Cheers,
Chuck
1:45 a.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2007 1:34 AM
Subject: Re: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20
The cat, the board, or both? lol
I have a bunch of cats in the house, they use the kitty litter just fine.
But I did find a hairball on a machine once, that's bad enough. Oh and
Chinese manufactured KVM cables must taste like catnip to young cats (glad
they grew out of that).
Cat urine seems to be very concentrated ammonia, but the copper traces on a
circuit board would be green and show damage unless the board coating did
not get penetrated. In other words the damage should be clear to see if it
was damaged.
On 20 Jan 2007 at 1:06, Teo Zenios wrote:
> I was wondering what you people think about machines that have been used
as
a latrine by
animals, do you clean them up or toss them?
I once owned a very sneaky tomcat. He made one of my PCB's a place to
leave his calling card--and I didn't discover it for about a year.
By the time I got to it, the urine had corroded the copper right off
the substrate in places.
I threw it out. I don't own cats anymore.
Cheers,
Chuck 
10:35 a.m.
I once owned a very sneaky tomcat. He made one of my
PCB's a place to
leave his calling card--and I didn't discover it for about a year.
By the time I got to it, the urine had corroded the copper right off
the substrate in places.
I threw it out. I don't own cats anymore.
Cat Pee is something VERY corrosive. But a nice curiosity - it reacts to
UV! If you use a UV lantern and take a look at your collection (on the dark,
of course!) you'll see where the d at mm bastard peed.
Love cats, but hate their pee.
5:18 p.m.
I once owned a very sneaky tomcat. He made one of my
PCB's a place to
leave his calling card--and I didn't discover it for about a year.
By the time I got to it, the urine had corroded the copper right off
the substrate in places.
I threw it out. I don't own cats anymore.
Our priorities differ :-). My cat, fortunately, doesn't regard my classic
computers as toilets, if he did, I'd find some way of keeping said
computers well away from the cat. But no way would I get rid of said cat,
I love him (and the previous cat I had, and ...) more than any computer.
-tony
6:13 p.m.
On 20 Jan 2007 at 22:18, Tony Duell wrote:
Our priorities differ :-). My cat, fortunately,
doesn't regard my classic
computers as toilets, if he did, I'd find some way of keeping said
computers well away from the cat. But no way would I get rid of said cat,
I love him (and the previous cat I had, and ...) more than any computer.
Oh, I didn't get rid of the cat. He lived a full life until age 18.
His female companion recently passed after 17 years with me.
But I have dogs now and don't intend to adopt another cat--I've had
cats around pretty much continuously for 30 years. My three golden
retrievers know to leave my gear alone (I've had dogs around almost
continuously for the last 20 years). FWIW, the dogs got along just
fine with the cats...
Cheers,
Chuck
10:45 p.m.
On 1/20/07, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
FWIW, the dogs got along just fine with the cats...
"Dogs and cats living together... Mass hysteria!" ;-D
--
"I laugh because I dare not cry. This is a crazy world
and the only way to enjoy it is to treat it as a joke."
-- Hilda "Sharpie" Burroughs,
"The Number of the Beast" by Robert A. Heinlein
11:23 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
But I have dogs now and don't intend to adopt
another cat--I've had
We have both dogs and cats, but cats can sit on your monitor and watch
you work ;-)
(Yes, I vacuum the grill on top occaisionally!)
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
11:35 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Leonard" <trixter at oldskool.org>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2007 11:23 PM
Subject: Re: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20
Chuck Guzis wrote:
The younger cats like to attack the screen mouse pointer once in a while,
but mostly watch it move . I have a L shaped desk in my lab with a few
monitors and the cats do like sitting on them watching me do whatever I am
doing. The cats are either interested in what I am doing or just like the
heat from the 17" monitors.
TZ
But I have dogs now and don't intend to adopt
another cat--I've had
We have both dogs and cats, but cats can sit on your monitor and watch
you work ;-)
(Yes, I vacuum the grill on top occaisionally!)
11:03 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 20 Jan 2007 at 1:06, Teo Zenios wrote:
I didn't think anybody owned cats..... I thought they were kind hearted
enough
to let people live in THEIR homes... :-)
-- Curt
I was wondering what you people think about
machines that have been used as
a latrine by animals, do you clean them up or toss them?
I once owned a very sneaky tomcat. He made one of my PCB's a place to
leave his calling card--and I didn't discover it for about a year.
By the time I got to it, the urine had corroded the copper right off
the substrate in places.
I threw it out. I don't own cats anymore.
Cheers,
Chuck
21 Jan
21 Jan
1:47 p.m.
What is it with cats and electronics? When I was yonger and liiving
in my parents house, I had a computer setup in the back room for
everyone to use, damned cats would pee all over the power paks
underneath the desk, too bad the little SOB's didn't electrocute themselves.
Curt
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 20 Jan 2007 at 1:06, Teo Zenios wrote:
I was wondering what you people think about
machines that have been used as
a latrine by animals, do you clean them up or toss them?
I once owned a very sneaky tomcat. He made one of my PCB's a place to
leave his calling card--and I didn't discover it for about a year.
By the time I got to it, the urine had corroded the copper right off
the substrate in places.
I threw it out. I don't own cats anymore.
Cheers,
Chuck
20 Jan
20 Jan
10:33 a.m.
I was wondering what you people think about machines
that have been used
as
a latrine by animals, do you clean them up or toss them?
If it is a very common computer, toss it
If it is an Apple Lisa, clean it even if you have to use your dirty
hands and your tongue :oD
So what do you guys do in a situation where this has
happened? How toxic
would the bodily fluids be to chips and circuit boards? I hear rat
excrement
can carry some nasty deadly diseases. Any opinions?
There is a cleaning fluid in Brazil called "creolina" (please google for
that). It is a powerful disinfectant and mainly inert for computers. When I
have to deal with something like that (and man...it DO HAPPENS!) I prepare a
bath of pure creolina (maybe "creoline" in english?) and let it rest there
for one day or two, components face down (because all the dirty will go to
the botton of the pan). After that I take the board out (with gloves, of
course) and give it a good wash. If the board is still dirty, more creolina
with a medium brush and more water, until it is clean enough or declared too
troublesome to save.
There are so much trash I find here somedays...
10:59 p.m.
Teo Zenios wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan.dicks at gmail.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2007 12:38 AM
Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20
I personally have only dealt with this 3 times....
1 time for a friend with an IBM PC portable... and the electronics didn't
get touched... but the cat urine corroded the shielding.... he never
completed the project (and the computer belonged the school he was working
for even when at home his cat peed in it !). I still have the computer
guts...
just not the case/kb/etc....
The second time was inside a all in one mac (early powerpc generation...
the ones where the mainboard slid in from the rear).... I scrapped it...
saving a few parts from it.... it was free... so I didn't particularly care.
The most recent time was I was driving by a home on trash day and saw a
computer and monitor at the side of the road. I stopped, and decided to
grab the computer (for parts only... it was a bit beat up).... after I
got it
home... I discovered it was urinated on by an animal (in the trash, in the
home ? don't know). I wanted parts only... so I gutted it (the pee never
made it into anything except possibly the power supply). Everything worked
except the power supply... which made a very nasty noise when I tested it...
(it got scrapped). But I did end up with a mainboard, Celeron 1100, a 256MB
PC100 or PC133 DIMM (I forget the speed), a CD-ROM drive, and a floppy
drive (there was no hd). As I had been looking for some 256MB modules,
I was happy to get one for free... and the mainboard was transfered into an
old e-machines PC that I obtained for free... and lives on.
My general take... unless it has particular value... I wouldn't give
urinated on components any of my time.... it does a number on the metals
used in circuits/boards if not immediately removed.
-- Curt
So I get this pair of free SS20s today at the
weekly geek lunch at the
Chinese restaurant down the street - one nice, clean one, and one
that, um... well... was corroded inside due to an unfortunate meeting
with a dog, I'm told.
I was wondering what you people think about machines that have been used as
a latrine by animals, do you clean them up or toss them?
While looking around for a spare Mac IIfx I ran across a person who had a
Mac IIx (he thought it was a IIfx) with a DOVE accelerator card in it and
the pictures he sent looked decent from the outside (Mac IIs tend to
discolor badly). Once he opened it up he found out a mouse had made a nest
and used it for a latrine. The guy said he would clean it up, but while I
have dealt with some smokers tar and dust bunnies that look older then I am
I never had to deal with pee and poo in a machine before.
So what do you guys do in a situation where this has happened? How toxic
would the bodily fluids be to chips and circuit boards? I hear rat excrement
can carry some nasty deadly diseases. Any opinions?
TZ
12:04 p.m.
On Saturday 20 January 2007 00:38, Ethan Dicks wrote:
internal SCSI drive of a type I'd never seen
before. I had to google
it - an ST5660NC. I was surprised to confirm that even though it was
an SCA-connector drive, it was a whopping 545MB, and *narrow* (thus
the "NC"). I didn't know anyone made a) SCA drives below 1GB, and b)
narrow SCSI SCA drives. I think the drive bracket is probably one of
the most expensive things in the box, really.
I've seen them quite a bit in machines from Purdue, mostly in SS5's.
SS20's are expensive enough that I'm not sure why someone would use that
drive...
I think there was some recent list traffic about using
an SS20 as,
essentially, an X terminal with that optional internal frame buffer,
but since I don't have one, I'm thinking "headless server". Not as
powerful as the cheapest of "haul-it-away" commodity boxes, but
substantially more robust. At least I'd expect this box to stay up
for 6 months at a time.
I think I've got some VSIMM's laying around somewhere. Probably next to
my E4000's. :)
Pat
--
Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org
12:45 p.m.
On 1/20/07, Patrick Finnegan <pat at computer-refuge.org> wrote:
What do VSIMMs go for these days?
-ethan
On Saturday 20 January 2007 00:38, Ethan Dicks wrote:
The sticker on the front suggests that this box left a university
surplus for $25 some time ago... I'm sure the innards were wonked
around with a bit, especially as there were only 2 DIMMs in it (48MB
total).
internal SCSI drive of a type I'd never seen
before. I had to google
it - an ST5660NC...
I've seen them quite a bit in machines from Purdue, mostly in SS5's.
SS20's are expensive enough that I'm not sure why someone would use that
drive... I think there
was some recent list traffic about using an SS20 as,
essentially, an X terminal with that optional internal frame buffer...
I think I've got some VSIMM's laying around somewhere. Probably next to
my E4000's. :)
10:45 p.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
So I get this pair of free SS20s today at the weekly
geek lunch at the
Chinese restaurant down the street - one nice, clean one, and one
that, um... well... was corroded inside due to an unfortunate meeting
with a dog, I'm told. I stripped down the soiled unit before I even
got home to recover a (clean) 1"-tall Toshiba SCSI CD-ROM, two (clean)
SM50 processor modules, and a mixed pile of DIMMs with some corrosion
on the fingers. The motherboard was a total loss, as was the chassis.
I have washed and brushed the SIMMs, a mix of 8MB and 32MB - not sure
about a couple of them, but most seem to be visually intact. I was
planning on an alkalai wash before testing them.
The other box being clean made it a good candidate to boot up... it
had a single SM50 (now two), 48MB of RAM, a TGX framebuffer, and an
internal SCSI drive of a type I'd never seen before. I had to google
it - an ST5660NC. I was surprised to confirm that even though it was
an SCA-connector drive, it was a whopping 545MB, and *narrow* (thus
the "NC"). I didn't know anyone made a) SCA drives below 1GB, and b)
narrow SCSI SCA drives. I think the drive bracket is probably one of
the most expensive things in the box, really.
I think there was some recent list traffic about using an SS20 as,
essentially, an X terminal with that optional internal frame buffer,
but since I don't have one, I'm thinking "headless server". Not as
powerful as the cheapest of "haul-it-away" commodity boxes, but
substantially more robust. At least I'd expect this box to stay up
for 6 months at a time.
If you are looking to add better video... I have some Sun SS20 8MB VSIMMS
brand new in the box.
I used an SS20 (at different times with a single HS180, and dual SM71s)
(under Solaris 8), and with decent drives and not shortchanging it on RAM,
I found it to be a fairly nice system. The VSIMM (SX video), gives you
24 bit video, and drops it right on the memory bus... so it has the best
speed
your going to get in a SS20 too.
Contact me off list of you are interested in one of these for your 20...
I kept 2 for mine... as I managed to obtain one of the rare 2nd VSIMM
13W3 add in boards that extend the video out to the back for the 2nd
VSIMM... but my 20 is currently in mothballs... (working on other stuff).
-- Curt
At least it runs Solaris 9.
-ethan
22 Jan
22 Jan
10:52 a.m.
Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote:
If you are looking to add better video... I have some
Sun SS20 8MB VSIMMS
brand new in the box.
I used an SS20 (at different times with a single HS180, and dual
SM71s) (under Solaris 8), and with decent drives and not
shortchanging it on RAM, I found it to be a fairly nice system. The
VSIMM (SX video), gives you 24 bit video, and drops it right on the
memory bus... so it has the best speed your going to get in a SS20
too.
Isn't it unaccelerated 24-bit video though? Did Sun ever make an
accelerated 24-bit card?
Peace... Sridhar
11:03 a.m.
I used an SS20
[...] I found it to be a fairly nice system. The
VSIMM (SX video), gives you 24 bit video, and drops it right on the
memory bus...
Isn't it unaccelerated 24-bit video though? Did Sun ever make an accelerated 24-bit card?
See the SUNW,leo that I mentioned earlier - it occupies two slots, but
it's got 24 bits of colour depth and according to Sun's doc is has
quite a lot of 3D rendering hardware - though, again, it's not
documented as far as I've been able to find.
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
12:12 p.m.
In article <45B4DDBC.5080303 at gmail.com>,
Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> writes:
[...] Did Sun ever make an
accelerated 24-bit card?
Yes, they made a bunch of different 3D accelerators during the 90s
(and most likely beyond, but I haven't been attending SIGGRAPH often
enough to say for sure). Ironically, they didn't start making good 3D
accelerators until they hired ex-Evans & Sutherland engineers. I can
concur that working at E&S was good training in 3D! They really knew
their engineering, its such a shame that marketing and management were
utter failures.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
1:20 p.m.
Richard wrote:
Just to be sure, these cards were Sbus and not UPA, right?
Peace... Sridhar
[...] Did Sun
ever make an
accelerated 24-bit card?
Yes, they made a bunch of different 3D accelerators during the 90s
(and most likely beyond, but I haven't been attending SIGGRAPH often
enough to say for sure). Ironically, they didn't start making good 3D
accelerators until they hired ex-Evans & Sutherland engineers. I can
concur that working at E&S was good training in 3D! They really knew
their engineering, its such a shame that marketing and management were
utter failures.
2:59 p.m.
In article <45B50075.9040209 at gmail.com>,
Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> writes:
Richard wrote:
Just to be sure, these cards were Sbus and not UPA, right?
I don't recall, since I never had one.
Evans & Sutherland Freedom series graphics accelerators were available
for Sun machines in the early 1990s. These were essentially a
separate box with a host interface card. The host interface for a Sun
was Sbus based.
I can't say what Sun's accelerators used to talk to the host, but I'd
assume Sbus for mid 90s models.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
[...]
Did Sun ever make an
accelerated 24-bit card?
Yes, they made a bunch of different 3D accelerators during the 90s
(and most likely beyond, but I haven't been attending SIGGRAPH often
enough to say for sure). Ironically, they didn't start making good 3D
accelerators until they hired ex-Evans & Sutherland engineers. I can
concur that working at E&S was good training in 3D! They really knew
their engineering, its such a shame that marketing and management were
utter failures.
9:40 p.m.
Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote:
Not sure... it may lack hardware acceleration.... but the fact that the
card is on the
memory bus makes it fast for everyday X11 use.... I never felt wanting
for more
speed out of it....
although... from a document I found by googling:
SX provides acceleration of the graphics and imaging segments of
applications that run on a SPARCstation 10SX or SPARCstation 20
workstation. Acceleration can be used for a wide range of pixel
operations, including 2D and 3D graphics rendering, multimedia, and
image processing.
The SX accelerator, built into the SMC, can directly accelerate
operations on both the system main memory (DRAM) and the video memory
(VRAM). The SMC is comprised of:
1. An error-correcting code memory controller which interfaces
with both the system main memory (DRAM) and the video memory
(VRAM; the frame buffer) to the system memory bus.
2. The SX imaging and graphics accelerator.
If you are looking to add better video... I have
some Sun SS20 8MB
VSIMMS
brand new in the box.
I used an SS20 (at different times with a single HS180, and dual
SM71s) (under Solaris 8), and with decent drives and not
shortchanging it on RAM, I found it to be a fairly nice system. The
VSIMM (SX video), gives you 24 bit video, and drops it right on the
memory bus... so it has the best speed your going to get in a SS20
too.
Isn't it unaccelerated 24-bit video though? Did Sun ever make an
accelerated 24-bit card?
Peace... Sridhar
So, I guess there is some acceleration .... but I haven't found much
details on
exactly what kind or how good it is in comparison to other frame buffers.
For what I used SS20 for, I'd rather have SX video over any other.
But I'm sure certain operations would be better on TGX series or ZX...
but for 'day to day' use... I found the SX to be excellent.
-- Curt
6391
days inactive
6394
days old
22 comments
13 participants
participants (13)
-
alexandre-listas＠e-secure.com.br -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
cclist＠sydex.com -
curt＠atarimuseum.com -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
josefcub＠gmail.com -
legalize＠xmission.com -
mouse＠Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA -
pat＠computer-refuge.org -
ploopster＠gmail.com -
rescue＠hawkmountain.net -
teoz＠neo.rr.com -
trixter＠oldskool.org