SpacStation IPC?

From: J. Maynard Gelinas <maynard_at_jmg.com>
Date: Sat Oct 11 00:48:14 1997

>
> >The IPC is an early Sparc based machine. It is about the same speed as
> >a Sparc 1+ and has a builtin (bw2?) monochrome frame buffer. I have
> >recently seen IPC base units without memory or harddrive for sale for $50.
> >Even with memory $175 is likely too much.

        I seem to remember it has a 20mhz Sparc CPU, so more like a
Sparc 1. But this is a quibble. It fits in a 'shoebox' style case,
supports up to two banks of 30 pin SIMMS, can fit one 3 1/2" hard disk
and one 3 1/2" floppy, and has one sbus slot (I think?), and a builtin
bwtwo. It's a sloooow computer and most definately not worth $175
base. I've seen them at the MIT flea for between $50 and $75 for
*just* the base.

>
> I tend to agree, but would first ask what comes with it monitor (color or
> mono)? Hard drive? If so, how big? KB/mouse? CD-ROM drive?
>


        CDROM Drive??? No way. Suns don't take normal SCSI CDRom
drives, they want drives which support 512kb/sector(1). That's not to
say they are terribly expensive, just a little difficult to come by.
Old Hitachi tube HM-4119A monitors seem to be going for about $100
around here, though. That's the old 19" tube fixed freq monitors from
around 1988-1990 (Maybe earlier?). A good Sony GDM20D10 20" might run
you about $500 used. This is a *nice* monitor, however. The Sony
GDM16A15's I've seen for as little as $200, and for a 16" monitor it's
very sweet (at least as good as your average 17" commercial grade PC
monitor, maybe better if you can deal with a fixed freq monitor on a
PC.

> I assume that the 4 SIMMs total 16MB, with a possible of 32 total on the board.
>
> $175 may be reasonable if it comes with a decent HD and a color monitor.
> It;'s too much just for a bare CPU.
>

   I think that's asking for more than the $175 is worth. I'd guess a
IPC W/ 16MB RAM, Type 4 keyboard, mouse, 404MB hard drive, CGThree
(color) frame buffer, and a Hitachi tube monitor would go for about
$300. Make sure you get the cables, especially the 13W3 -> 4BNC or
13W3 to 13W3. The 13W3 -> 4BNC especially are getting harder to find,
and Sun *doesn't* charge reasonable prices!

        Good Luck!
        Maynard

(1) http://www.aball.de/~wpv/sun/faq/cdrom.html
    http://saturn.tlug.org/suncdfaq/
Received on Sat Oct 11 1997 - 00:48:14 BST

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