Thanks all for the info. So, it turns out that it has a copy of SPARC64
Solaris 2.4 on it. Does anyone know how to convince Solaris 2.4 to boot up in
single user mode without asking for the root password, and without an OS disk?
from the hostname I can find what domain it was on so I should be able to
h4x0r it from the network, but I'd rather get into it on console before
networking it because I don't have a machine I can convienently do that with
at hand.
Dwight K. Elvey said:
> Hi
> I used to work at HaL. I don't have any of the stuff
> you need but I'll ask around. It is funny that when working
> on some of the machines made by other people I can't understand
> why they didn't save some of the information for future
> use. Here I was working there and I don't think I saved
> anything.
> The HaL boxes were the first Sparc64's. Still they did
> take a specialized OS. This was mainly for the I/O drivers.
> The processors used in the early machines were some
> of the first to use such things as out of order execution.
> Basically, the processor would prefetch a number of
> instructions ahead of time. If it saw an instruction that
> didn't seem to have dependencies on previous results that
> might not be available yet, it would execute them to fill,
> otherwise, dead processor time. This was fine for most
> everything but I/O and some process handshake in multitasked.
> Someone forgot the I/O problem. I/O that needed to
> be ordered had to have enough 'nop's inline so that the
> next I/O was not in the prefetch. This required special
> I/O routines, even though the machines were otherwise compatible
> with other Sun code.
> I don't even recall if the 330 was a R1 or a R2 processor.
> I guess I can't blame others for losing computer history
> when I'm part of the problem. I guess we should all make
> efforts to save information as we go along. The hard
> part is to recognize when we are at a significant point
> in time.
> Dwight
>
> >From: "Dan Wright" <dtwright_at_uiuc.edu>
> >
> >I just picked up one of those today. I'm not sure of the date, but I think it
> >might only be 7.5-8 yrs old, making it slightly OT...
> >
> >anyway, does anyone know anything about this box? All I've been able to find
> >out so far is that it was the first marketed SPARC64 machine, it was
> >technically very good, but was a total market failure. In other words, it's
> >obscure and weird, perfect for a classiccmp find ;) It's a sun-compatible box
> >-- I've fired it up with a serial console and I get a sun-ish OpenBoot prompt,
> >etc.
> >
> >So, my question is, does anyone know more about this thing? Anyone have docs,
> >OS media (if it won't run normal solaris...not sure), or anything?
> >
> >Thanks!
> >
> >- Dan Wright
> >(dtwright_at_uiuc.edu)
> >(http://www.uiuc.edu/~dtwright)
> >
> >-] ------------------------------ [-] -------------------------------- [-
> >``Weave a circle round him thrice, / And close your eyes with holy dread,
> > For he on honeydew hath fed, / and drunk the milk of Paradise.''
> > Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan
> >
>
- Dan Wright
(dtwright_at_uiuc.edu)
(
http://www.uiuc.edu/~dtwright)
-] ------------------------------ [-] -------------------------------- [-
``Weave a circle round him thrice, / And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honeydew hath fed, / and drunk the milk of Paradise.''
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan
Received on Tue May 28 2002 - 16:18:31 BST