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My Current Project

D

Diffusion

Senior member
Ok, I have been working on a rather interesting machine over the last two weeks or so, and am currently ordering parts for it etc, just thought I might like to give a run down in case anyone else has an interest in obscure hardware. I started off by purchasing a Sun SparcStation 2 with 16mb of RAM off of ebay, the SparcStation 2 will run old versions of SunOS, OpenBSD, NetBSD, etc, it supports a maximum of 64mb of RAM on the motherboard, has 3 SBus slots, and 1 40mhz Sparc processor. At present, I have ordered 12 4mb sticks of RAM to fill out the availible memory, and I am hunting around for 7200rpm to 10000rpm SCSI hard drives which it will accept. I've found memory cards for this that expand the memory up to a max of 128mb here, an 80mhz processor upgrade here, and a recent 50 pin SCSI drive here. I have not yet ordered most of the stuff, I just have the memory, the machine, and a monitor and keyboard. I intend to pick up a 3rd sbus card off ebay with standard ethernet on board. Over all this is pretty fun, its nice not working with x86 hardware every once in a while, and these things seem to be built like rocks. Any thoughts?

Heres a general info page on this type of system: http://ipc.obsolyte.com/sun_ss2/
 
Cool. Those Sun SparcStations are sweet. When I went to NCSU they had SparcStation 5 labs running a flavor of BSD and had huge Sun monitors. Great systems, I've always wanted one for myself.
 
out of curiosity, what are you going to do with it? are you building it for a specific purpose or just for fun? i remember at school (SUNY Binghamton) they had a few rooms filled with SPARC stations, but i don't know anything about them...
 


<< out of curiosity, what are you going to do with it? are you building it for a specific purpose or just for fun? i remember at school (SUNY Binghamton) they had a few rooms filled with SPARC stations, but i don't know anything about them... >>


It is gonig to replace my AXIA Athlon as my primary workstation. The Athlon machine generates so much noise that I cannot stand to run it 24/7, and as such I decided to supplement it. The Athlon is going into my basement where it will serve as a processor server, I will SSH into it to compile programs which would take too long on the SparcStation. I am also rebuilding it for fun, I almost never work on non-x86 hardware, and figured that it might be a nice change. Its a solid machine, and the case incorperates a number of things that I have never seen in x86 systems, such as airducts to suck air in from certain places outside the case, grills on the bottom of the machine to suck air in as air is pulled out from other places, etc. I'll take pics and scan them in once I am finished so you can see what I am talking about.
 
Update: I bought a 80mhz processor upgrade, but before recieving it, I managed to dig up a place which sells the rare SPARCstation 5 mainboard upgrade, so I purchased that. I have now filled out all the RAM on the machine, and intend to trade the old motherboard along with the 80mhz processor upgrade for a SCSI/Ethernet card. The new motherboard (info) supports up to 128 mb of RAM using 2 72 pin SIMM slots along with the old 16 30 pin SIMMs, so I dont think I will end up needing a RAM daughter card for this. In terms of finding the board upgrade, after much searching around, www.bogoman.com sells the upgrades, but they only accept payment via paypal, and they do not have them listed, you must contact them via email or phone to purchase them. Unfortunatly, the only ones they have in stock are 110mhz boards for 60$. I would much prefer the 170mhz boards, which was the fastest that they released, but no one has them availible for less then 1500$ (the original price). Maybe I will be able to dig up a 170 mhz processor on the used market sometime in the near future. Global Micro sells 9.1gb 50 pin SCSI drives for 50$, unfortunatly, they are 5400 rpm, so I am uncertain whether I should buy them, or a pair of 10,000rpm 9gb SCSI drives, which would cost 200$ each. I suppose it depends on how much money I have after I get back from europe in august. Im thinking about buying a 15&quot; black LCD and getting a friend of mine to air brush the case a matte black. I suppose I could pick up a second SS-2 and steal its case, so that I can paint one and keep the other in its original coloration. They go for 10-20$, so it would not be too pricey. Im posting this update just to keep everyone informed.
 


<< Hey, this is cool. Why don't you make a little web page with pictures of this project? >>


Ask and you shall recieve, sparc2.hobbiton.org, I just slapped it together, Ill add pics sometime next week, whenever I get around to buying film, taking images, developing 'em, and scanning them.
 
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