[SunRescue] Sparc4 and Sparc5

[James Lockwood]

On Tue, 1 Jun 1999, joshua grubman wrote:

> what's the deal with the ss4 sound card anyhow? did it not ship as stock
> hardware on all ss4 boards?

The SS4 audio card was an optional item, you only got one if you asked for
it.  They were cheap (under $100) new from Sun.  MemoryX had them for
under $30/ea last I checked.

> yeah.. the ss5 has dual internal sca connectors and one 50 pin narrow scsi
> connector for the cdrom drive. i forget what's in the ss4.

SS4 has one internal SCA connector (on the end of a cable mounted above
the motherboard) and does not have a 50 pin narrow connector for the cdrom
drive by default (you had to order it seperately).

The SS4 was a very heavily cost-reduced version of the SS5, in this day
and age (when the price difference between them comes out to under $100
for comparable systems) the SS5 is clearly a better bet.  The better power
supply (with stay-on feature) of the SS5 and SparcServer 4's is worth that
by itself.

-James (of course, the 10 and 20 are my favorite pre-Ultras)