Sun Sparc ID

From: Ethan Dicks <erd_6502_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Fri Oct 11 23:19:00 2002

--- Gary Hildebrand <ghldbrd_at_ccp.com> wrote:
> I have the possibility to pick up the following:
>
> Sun 600-2575-06 : 10" square by about 4" tall. Has drive and a whole
> lot of memory . . . .

Don't recognize that number. 10"x10"x4" sounds like an IPC/IPX/LX/Classic
enclosure. IPCs and IPXs are sun4c architecture (eqiv to SPARC 1+ and
SPARC 2, respectively), the LX and Classic are sun4m and can run Solaris
8 and 9 (with enough parity 72pin SIMMs - 64MB at least to run the
installer).
 
> Sun Sparc Station 1 Model 147 p/n 608-2217-01 : 15" square by about 3"
> tall. Guess this is the pizza box model

Sun 4c, runs Linux, SunOS, Solaris (poorly) - 12MHz? original SPARC
processor. Like an IPC or SPARC 1+, but not as fast. Uses 30 pin
parity memory. May not like 3 chip PC SIMMs. Prefers 9 chip SIMMs.
Can take 1MB, probably takes 4MB (mine did).
 
> I only looked at both briefly, and not have any detailed info at this
> time.

s'ok...
 
> I can get matching monitors, but don't think there is a keyboard/mouse
> available. I was wondering if you can power them up
> w/o keyboard/mouse, just box and monitor to verify basic operation,
> whether dead or alive.

Yes. You can power any of them up with a terminal on the correct
serial port (can't remember A vs B and can't easily look up at the
moment). Default is 9600 baud, probably 8n1. It _is_ possible for the
EEPROM settings to look for a keyboard/framebuffer only, but typical
settings are to use framebuffer if a keyboard is found, or else use the
serial port for a serial console.
 
Most sun4c machines (SPARC 1, 1+, 2, IPC, IPX, ELC...) have old enough
clock batteries that they are dead. The "problem" is that the system
ID and the ethernet address are in the battery-backed-up SRAM. There
is a magical bar code and alpha-numeric code on the lid that only Sun
can reverse into a system ID (which is an 8-bit machine-type code plus
the lower 24 bits of the ethernet address).

The Suns-at-Home list just posted a Fourth command to enter at the "OK"
ROM prompt that converts an ELC's (and maybe one other model's) code back
into a 24-bit number (treat the chars as a Base-24 number and subtract an
offset and convert to hex), but mostly, if the battery dies, the hardware
address will be FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF rather than 08:00:20:X:Y:Z and the
original is lost forever. If you have any router or system logs with the
old MAC address, you can copy it to a new chip.

BTW, there was apparently a mask-shrink and the new die doesn't like
to play with some ancient Suns.


At this point, sun4c machines are at the "hauled away as a nuisance"
level because of the lack of support of sun4c in recent editions of
Solaris, and the max memory is 64MB except for the SPARC 2 which can
take 128MB with a rare and expensive add-in board.

I'll be glad to answer what I can, but in the meantime, here are a couple
of key URLs for new or potential Sun owners...

http://www.squirrel.com/squirrel/sun-nvram-hostid.faq.html
(how to recover from a dead NVRAM)

http://www.sunhelp.org/
(general help)

-ethan


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Received on Fri Oct 11 2002 - 23:19:00 BST

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