Nekochan Net

To figure out which framebuffer you have, see here: http://www.sunshack.org/data/fbfaq/FrameBuffer.html#3

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brescia / Sun Blade 2500 / 2x 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC IIIi / "XVR-100" 32 MiB / 8 GiB RAM / 73 GB disk / OpenSolaris 132
sparcgap / Sun Ultra 1 / 200 MHz UltraSPARC / Creator3D FFB1 / 832 MiB RAM / 50 GB disk / Solaris 9
leydenjar / RDI PowerLite / 50 MHz microSPARC / cgthree / 640x480 LCD / 32 MiB RAM / 2x 525 MB disk / Solaris 2.5.1

Just got my first Sun " Hope I can fix it" Project.

Its a Ulrtra 5 with 64 mb ram, 4 gig HD, 270mhz cpu.............................................And the dreaded u13 boot error

Anyway, I'm not sure what OS it has as I'm not very good with Open Boot. Cosmetically its fine except one glaring issue, the top cover is MIA. However it looks like a fairly standard size so maybe I can yank one from a more common machine ( Common in SW Georgia means x86 running windows, this is only the second Sun system I've run across that isn't still in service, and third Sun overall).

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Macintosh IIfx running A/UX 3, 160mb hd, 8 mb ram, Radius Truecolor 24 Graphics Accelerator
Macintosh SE/30 running A/UX 3
Apple iMac DV+ 450mhz, 256mb ram, Panther
Compaq Presario 1210 Laptop dual-Booting choice of Win 98 or Damn Small Linux
Compaq Evo T20 former Thin Client running Damn Small Linux
Sun Ultra 5 ,270mhz , 256mb ram, Solaris 9
Acer Aspire 5734z, 2.3ghz Pentium 4500 dual core, 3gb Ram, Dual booting Windows 7 or Zorin Linux
HP Laptop, 1.1 ghz Duron cpu, 384mb ram, Puppy Linux
Power Mac G4, 450mhz, 768mb ram, OS 10.4.11

Woo, I also got a sun!

- Sun Ultra 60 Elite 3D
- 2GB RAM (it is missing ONE memory module, maybe that is why is showin 1750MB)
- 2x 9GB HDs (I have a pair of 36GB I may put on that)
- 21" SUN monitor (CRT)
- Original mouse/keyboard (got it!!! But the PS/2 adapter is still on the drawing board)
- I don't know which framebuffer it is using (still on storage of moving) but this is surely a PCI/PCIX card (e.g.: Not using that slot more to the front of the computer)
- some external SCSI boxes, but no cables for them.

One of the drive sleds is broken, but I still can use it

As soon as I get in Rio de Janeiro, I'm crazy to see it working (sorry guys, Octane has a priority!)

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THE dream come true: Silicon Graphics' Octane
Octane R10000 225MHz, 2GB RAM, 1x36GB HDs, 21" monitor, SSI (no TRAM) graphics

Just added a bit to my collection. Currently I have SS2 80Mhz,SS2 40Mhz, SS5 70Mhz, U1 167Mhz ... I bought a ZX framebuffer to fiddle around with it works well with my 19in monitor but my 21in seem to be failing (I get an image skewed right and down and when X starts it dies). Sadly the HyperSparcs on ebay jumped up in price recently so I probably won't get one of those. I might be getting an rdi powerlite 50 if I can muster about $35 for the shipping.

Hardware I hope to have at some point: AG-10E framebuffer, sparcbook 3GX (so I can fiddle on the go ^.^ )

I hope the ZX/Leo documentation gets out of the legal review if it hasn't been forgotten in the oracle takeover... supposedly its been in the queue since 2008.

I guess some people collect this old sparc hardware because it is nostalgic for them.... I like them purely for the architecture though as I found out about sparc after it was almost dead (yeah theres a few LEONs floating around out there and Fujitsu is faithful to the architecture).

I wouldn't count on it. The doc project was Sun being nice to the community with pretty much zero chance of ROi, and AFAIK Larry doesn't work that way.


SPARC, like the guy in the M.P. film, isn't quite dead yet. Sun/Oracle are still developing the CoolThreads line, with T3 machines released recently. It isn't HPC, and it isn't going to come back in a workstation, but it's still around and good for some applications.

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Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Systems available for remote access on request.

(single-CM)

Heh... true. But apparently the do have the document and are just sitting on it for no real reason as the hardware is soo old.

Does anyone have any idea of where to find the openGL drivers for the ZX? I have solaris 2.6 installed but it only has XGL and I don't think its acellerated other than supporting DGA. TGS apparently had a "normal" opengl driver for the ZX but I can't find it anywhere.

It costs money to make sure you're not violating any NDAs, and money to have someone scan it, and you're running the risk that there might be some proprietary information in there that could have made you a couple of billion dollars if it were handled right, and you'll be remembered as "the guy who gave it away".


Regarding the ZX/Leo drivers - they should be on the 2.6 disk (last supported version). Look for "leo" packages and install them.

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Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Systems available for remote access on request.

(single-CM)

While I'm no expert on the ZX I have read quite a bit of the documentation that is available on it and Solaris 2.6 does not ship accelerated OpenGL drivers for it both the OpenGL 1.1 and 1.2 implementations by sun are software rendered with direct memory mapped access to the card that is the only acceleration implemented.

I may have mentioned it before but TGS had an acellerated implementation of OpenGL for use with OpenInventor I guess. I haven't found any binaries though. The SUNWvts package (run /opt/SUNWvts/bin/vtsui or leotest manually if you know the options ha) on the sol2.6 supplimental software cd provides a rendering test suite for the ZX which I was able to run none of which was impressive really considering there are 5 25Mhz DSPs on the board it certainly should be able to do realtime rendering of some sort.

I'm pretty sure XGL (precursor to GLX I guess ) isn't even accelerated though I wouldn't mind someone telling me I'm wrong.

You could be right about the NDAs... but in that case what would stop someone from getting an NDA simlar to the developers that worked on the radeon drivers early on. I find it really odd that Sun wasn't shipping drivers that took advandage of this hardware as expensive as it was and relying on 3rd party.

While I have updated my sig, I haven't mentioned it here yet... This year brought a significant expansion of my Sun collection:

1) Earlier this year, someone in the town next to mine gave away a Sparcstation Classic and a U1/170 for free, which I duly collected...
2) When the sun4zoo in Germany closed down for good in June this year, I picked up a bunch of machines for free:
- Sparcstation IPC
- Sparcstation ELC
- Sparcstation LX
- Sparc Xterminal 1
- Sparcstation 1
- Sparcstation 1+
- Sparcstation 2
- Sparcstation 4/110
- Sparcstation 5/110
- Sparcstation 10 (with speakerbox... )
- U1E/170 with Creator
- U2/2x200 with Creator
- U5/400
- a bunch of keyboards, mice, micemats (yeah, the optical ones), spareparts, another SS1, SS1+ and SS5 for spares and other goodies (e.g. a new SBUS serial port extension - 8 ports, sealed in package)
Unfortunately, I could not take any of the monitors - simply no space...
I'm still busy going through this pile - so far, I've powered most of them on to make certain I retrieve all NVRAM data I can (several NVRAMs were already dead) and I've put an external battery on the NVRAM of the U2. The U5 will be failing soon, I suppose, as there are bulging capacitors on the motherboard - but then again, I only took it because noone else did... I'd love to do something with the ELC (maybe set up a diskless install and use it as a mail reading "terminal"), just because I think it's such a cute machine...

3) A while back, I bought a full set of Solaris 9 from someone - and got a free SS5/170 with it.

So, together with what I already had, I now have the majority of all sun4c/sun4m workstations covered - and a good part of the "old" Ultras, too (a U80 would be nice at some point - maybe even a U30 for completeness). Maybe not the most exiting part of what Sun has made (I've noticed many people like the Sun3's better for historical reasons and the newer Blades can be of more actual use, of course) - but for me, this collection pretty much represents what I have encountered "live" in my various educational/work places over the past 20 years, so I'm happy...

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Hooked up: [R12k/400, V6] [R10k/195, HI] [R5k/180, XL24] [R5k/150, -];
Sun U60/2x450, U10/440, U2/2x200, AXi/440; some PCs
In storage: [R10k/195] [R10k/150] [R4k4/250, SI]; DEC VX40;
Sun SS1/1+/2/4/5/10/20/ELC/IPC/IPX/Classic/LX/Classic X/Xterminal 1, U1/1E/5/30, JS1/NC;
DTK Station U-2/2x360; Apple iMac DV G3/400; Toshiba Libretto 110CT + even more PCs

You wouldn't happen to have any *extra* optical mouse mats would you? I have 2-3 optical mice but no pads which leaves me stuck with ball mice X.x.

Note that there are two different optical mouse pads, and which one your mouse uses depends on what mouse it is.

Somewhere there's a PS file that you can print out to get a working optical mouse pad.

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Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Systems available for remote access on request.

(single-CM)

Not really, I'm afraid - with the extras, I just about have a pad for each of the mice I have (and some of them are already worn/scratched), sorry.



True. IIRC, the blueish ones are for the Type 5 mice and the blackish ones for the Type 4. Or was it the other way round? I keep mixing them up... Used to be the typical practical joke, btw, to swap those when a new guy started at work...


I've been experimenting with those and I've even messed with the PS to get a finer/more even pitch. So far, I have been unable to get those to work with either Type 4 or Type 5 mice. I was wondering whether it would be worthwhile trying to print that on a transparent, then put some aluminium foil underneath in order to increase reflection but never got round to it.

cb88, I can certainly send you the PS files if you like if you want to experiment with them.

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Hooked up: [R12k/400, V6] [R10k/195, HI] [R5k/180, XL24] [R5k/150, -];
Sun U60/2x450, U10/440, U2/2x200, AXi/440; some PCs
In storage: [R10k/195] [R10k/150] [R4k4/250, SI]; DEC VX40;
Sun SS1/1+/2/4/5/10/20/ELC/IPC/IPX/Classic/LX/Classic X/Xterminal 1, U1/1E/5/30, JS1/NC;
DTK Station U-2/2x360; Apple iMac DV G3/400; Toshiba Libretto 110CT + even more PCs

I would try printing it directly on a reflective media, head over to your favorite arts & crafts store and see if they have anything suitable. (this stuff in a laser printer might make for quite a show but be sure to try that over at a friend's house)

We had this sticker stuff at a place I used to work that did work in a laser printer. It had a sort of brushed aluminum finish on it, we used it to make nameplates.

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(Maradona) (DavidVilla) A1186 (Xavi)
A1370 (Messi) dp43tf (Puyol) A1387 (Abidal) A1408 (Guardiola)

"InfiniteReality Graphics - Power Through Complexity"

CB88, if you don't mind waiting 2-4 months, I'm working into an open-source mouse/keyboard adapter for SUNs. I'd do that easily if I hadn't just moved and everything is yet boxed

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THE dream come true: Silicon Graphics' Octane
Octane R10000 225MHz, 2GB RAM, 1x36GB HDs, 21" monitor, SSI (no TRAM) graphics

Yeah I knew there were 2 differnet types of pads already ... I found a .ps file at one time but I think it was for only one model ? So sure an upload would be appreciated.

@Tabalabs Cool no rush :--) dude sounds like a useful project at least considering the lack of keyboards and mice for suns.

Legal nao tenha pressa cara, parece um projeto muito util vendo a faulta de teclado e mouse compativel com sun hardware.

Morei no Brazil quase 5 anos em MG