17 May
2004
17 May
'04
1:17 a.m.
See my other post about the Ultra 1 I found. (I think it's a couple of
years too new to be on-topic - sorry!)
I put the pair of memory sticks in there which I got in the same day and
tried powering the machine up using a terminal as the console.
Amazingly, it's alive!
At the moment it's set to boot from the network - any idea how I can
interrupt that and get into the boot monitor in order to switch that
off? I think there's some key combination to do it from a keyboard, but
of course I don't have one handy at the moment - just the console.
There's a clear perspex bracket above the CPU for holding a fan, but no
fan. As this machine had been stripped before I got it, I don't know if
it should have one and someone had taken it out. The CPU has a large
finned heatsink on it - on the web I saw a vague report that Sun may
have stopped putting fans in the machines on later ones and just used a
larger heatsink. Any ideas?
Finally, any clue as to whether the Apple SCSI CDROM I got will work in
the Ultra? It's a 1993 vintage drive, an "AppleCD 300 Plus". If not, I
do have a SCSI drive that'll do both 512 and 2048 block sizes, but it's
in a running machine at the moment...
No idea why this machine was thrown out. It seems to work so far. Maybe
it has an intermittant fault when it's been running for a while, or
maybe the network interface is dead (according to console messages it
notices when a cable's present or not though).
cheers
Jules
17 May
17 May
2:48 a.m.
On Mon, May 17, 2004 at 10:17:11AM +0000, Jules Richardson wrote:
At the moment it's set to boot from the network -
any idea how I can
interrupt that and get into the boot monitor in order to switch that
off? I think there's some key combination to do it from a keyboard, but
of course I don't have one handy at the moment - just the console.
Stop-A on
the keyboard or a Break on the serial console.
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
6:32 a.m.
Finally, any clue as to whether the Apple SCSI CDROM I
got will work in
the Ultra? It's a 1993 vintage drive, an "AppleCD 300 Plus". If not, I
do have a SCSI drive that'll do both 512 and 2048 block sizes, but it's
in a running machine at the moment...
Does the "AppleCD 300 Plus" support 512-byte blocks? I've got a 3rd
party 4x external drive I bought for my PowerBook 520c back in '95
that I typically use on systems that require 512-byte blocks.
Somehow I got lucky! The computer is long dead, but the CD-ROM drive
gets used several times a year :^)
No idea why this machine was thrown out. It seems to
work so far. Maybe
It was probably tossed because it's old and slow. Having said that,
awesome find, in my opinion, that's one of the best systems for
running OpenBSD (I've often wished I had one). One of these days
I'll get one, I've managed to get everything between the Sparc 2 and
Ultra 60, except it and an Ultra 30 for
free :^)
Zane
--
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
7:18 a.m.
On Mon, 2004-05-17 at 15:32, Zane H. Healy wrote:
Heh - I got hold of a Sparc 1, 2, 4, and 10 the other day and there's an
IPX on the way (and a few Sparc 5's in the pipeline) as a local site's
upgrading and so having a clear-out - I think they're keeping all their
Ultra machines though. Those ones are all off to the museum though.
Then this Sparc 4, 10 and the Ultra turned up yesterday - funny thing is
I've been wanting to get hold of a Sun machine of some form for years,
and suddenly lots turn up at once :-)
I'll have to have a look at OpenBSD - I've got spare drives so can stick
a copy on one of the others. I assume Suns are quite happy booting from
different SCSI targets....
I'll have to find a framebuffer of some sort for this one (I've got a
nice 21" Sun monitor sitting over at the museum which could run with
it). I think one of the machines destined for the museum had both a
framebuffer on board and a seperate CG6 card, so I might put the card in
this Ultra for now. It could badly do with some more memory too.
I suppose I class this machine as 'new', but they're perhaps one of the
last few 'modern' machines that are interesting to hack around on
though.
cheers
Jules
Does the "AppleCD 300 Plus" support 512-byte
blocks?
If that's what Sun machines need, then yes - I've just finished
installing Solaris from it :)
No idea why
this machine was thrown out. It seems to work so far. Maybe
It was probably tossed because it's old and slow. Having said that,
awesome find, in my opinion, that's one of the best systems for
running OpenBSD (I've often wished I had one). One of these days
I'll get one, I've managed to get everything between the Sparc 2 and
Ultra 60, except it and an Ultra 30 for free :^) 
12:54 p.m.
On Mon, May 17, 2004 at 08:32:18AM -0700, Zane H. Healy wrote:
Does the "AppleCD 300 Plus" support 512-byte
blocks? I've got a 3rd
party 4x external drive I bought for my PowerBook 520c back in '95
that I typically use on systems that require 512-byte blocks.
Somehow I got lucky! The computer is long dead, but the CD-ROM drive
gets used several times a year :^)
My recollection is that it does, along with the older Apple CD-ROM
drive (1x), but I wouldn't have used it on a SPARC for about 10 years
(I used to have an ancient Sony drive for my SPARC-1 in 1994, and I
*think* I used an Apple drive after the Sony drive died). That was
back in my SunOS days, which are getting increasingly eclipsed (pun
intended) by my ongoing Solaris experience (by 1996, I'd stopped working
with SunOS entirely, in favor of Solaris).
-ethan
--
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South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -31.9 F (-35.5 C) Windchill -73.59 F (-58.7 C)
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Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
11:08 a.m.
At 03:17 AM 5/17/2004, you wrote:
At the moment it's set to boot from the network -
any idea how I can
interrupt that and get into the boot monitor in order to switch that
off? I think there's some key combination to do it from a keyboard, but
of course I don't have one handy at the moment - just the console.
if you are using a serial terminal send a break and it should drop you to
the OK prompt, and from there you can set the auto-boot? enviornment
variable to dalse and it will drop to the OK prompt on powerup.
There's a clear perspex bracket above the CPU for
holding a fan, but no
fan. As this machine had been stripped before I got it, I don't know if
it should have one and someone had taken it out. The CPU has a large
finned heatsink on it - on the web I saw a vague report that Sun may
have stopped putting fans in the machines on later ones and just used a
larger heatsink. Any ideas?
IF it has the bracket for the fan, DO NOT RUN IT WITHOUT THE FAN. you WILL
fry the CPU. find a fan of appropriate size and install it. the newer
heatsinks are as taller and have a thin plastic ducting on them to channel
air from the fan in the powersupply over to cool the CPU
Finally, any clue as to whether the Apple SCSI CDROM I
got will work in
the Ultra? It's a 1993 vintage drive, an "AppleCD 300 Plus". If not, I
do have a SCSI drive that'll do both 512 and 2048 block sizes, but it's
in a running machine at the moment...
Ok, with solaris 7 and newer it -should- be able to boot. Ultras are still
supported in solaris 8 IIRC and you can get it free from sun (download ISO
images and burn them)
No idea why this machine was thrown out. It seems to
work so far. Maybe
it has an intermittant fault when it's been running for a while, or
maybe the network interface is dead (according to console messages it
notices when a cable's present or not though).
cheers
Jules
11:31 a.m.
Finally, any
clue as to whether the Apple SCSI CDROM I got will work in
the Ultra? It's a 1993 vintage drive, an "AppleCD 300 Plus". If not, I
do have a SCSI drive that'll do both 512 and 2048 block sizes, but it's
in a running machine at the moment...
Ok, with solaris 7 and newer it -should- be able to boot. Ultras are still
supported in solaris 8 IIRC and you can get it free from sun (download ISO
images and burn them)
2:18 p.m.
At 01:31 PM 5/17/2004, you wrote:
Are you talking about the OS ignoring the whole
512-byte issue, or what? I
don't know what the minimum supported OS for an Ultra 1 is, but I know that
it should be prior to 2.5.1 (I know 2.5.1 will run on an Ultra 10).
it either ignores the 512 byte limitation or sets any compatible drive to
512 byte blocks ,I forget which.
I have installed solaris 8 on my ultra 1's here, I haven't tried anything
older than solaris 2.6 on them.
18 May
18 May
2:43 p.m.
On Mon, 17 May 2004 10:17:11 +0000
Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk(a)yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
See my other post about the Ultra 1 I found. (I think it's a couple of
years too new to be on-topic - sorry!)
I put the pair of memory sticks in there which I got in the same day
and tried powering the machine up using a terminal as the console.
Amazingly, it's alive!
At the moment it's set to boot from the network - any idea how I can
interrupt that and get into the boot monitor in order to switch that
off? I think there's some key combination to do it from a keyboard,
but of course I don't have one handy at the moment - just the console.
There's a clear perspex bracket above the CPU for holding a fan, but
no fan. As this machine had been stripped before I got it, I don't
know if it should have one and someone had taken it out. The CPU has a
large finned heatsink on it - on the web I saw a vague report that Sun
may have stopped putting fans in the machines on later ones and just
used a larger heatsink. Any ideas?
Finally, any clue as to whether the Apple SCSI CDROM I got will work
in the Ultra? It's a 1993 vintage drive, an "AppleCD 300 Plus". If
not, I do have a SCSI drive that'll do both 512 and 2048 block sizes,
but it's in a running machine at the moment...
I have had good luck booting Ultra 1 boxes with that exact CD-ROM drive.
Last summer I had a group of three Ultra 1 boxed I'd gotten at auction
that had no CD Drives, and a pile of PowerMac 7200s with that drive in
them. It was a no-brainer to scrap the Macs and put a CD in the Sun
boxes. I've booted Solaris and NetBSD with those drives, using 'boot
cdrom' from the OB prompt.
I have heaps of those Apple drives, if anybody ones one or a few for the
cost of shipping just write.
As to why the Ultra 1 was 'thrown out': there seem to be a scad of U1
boxes being surplused these days. Mine I got at auction for $12.50
each, and possibly would have gotten them cheaper, but didn't want to
play 'chicken' with the auctioneers, who sometimes have a tendency if
they think you're 'camping' to end the 'select item from the pile'
bidding and sell the whole lot, sadly too often to a PC-only drone who
ends up pitching or scrapping anything that won't run Windoze.
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dickset＠amanda.spole.gov -
geoffr＠zipcon.net -
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jkunz＠unixag-kl.fh-kl.de -
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