[SunRescue] axil 220 and hello n stuff

[Ken Hansen]

I had one of these myself, upgraded it to an Axil 245 with a low-cost MB
swap that I came across. These are like "odd-ball" SS5 work-alikes...

The memory system can take 4, 8, 16 or 32 Meg SIMMs (72 pin parity)

As you know, they have two "stacked" sbus slots, so no dual-wide cards are
usable.

They have a nice clean design, plenty of room inside (IMHO), and make decent
little
workstations.

The 220 has a CG3 framebuffer (IIRC), could be a CG6, but not sure - my 245
upgrade
got me a TGX+ 4 Meg framebuffer (still 256 color though), but capable of
faster speeds
through dpuble-buffering.

These were popular in sites where the computers were secondary to the
software they
ran - i.e. in an archeticture firm for CAD programs, they would choose Axil
for the lower
unit cost and 100% compatibility.

My 245 upgrade also took me up to an 85 Mhz clock speed - these unit will
tend to be a
bit slower than a similar-spec'd SS5, due to certain design issues (slower
RAM speed, for
example), but the difference may not be noticible for your own use - it is,
at least a technically
slower machine.

HTH,

Ken
----- Original Message -----
From: "kebabthesheep" <kebabthesheep at yahoo.com>
To: <rescue at sunhelp.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2000 1:11 PM
Subject: [SunRescue] axil 220 and hello n stuff


> Hi yall,
>
> I've been reading this fine list for ages now, so I
> thought I might rear my head.  I live in the UK, in
> Southampton to be exact, and obviously have an almost
> religious devotion to unix hardware, specifically sun.
>  Just as a taster - he's a quick list of my toys:
>
> sun:
> sun3/140 carrera + scsi + SMD controller + 2nd
> ethernet
> sun3/60 (obviously)
> sparc1, 1+, 2, IPX, IPC, ELC, SLC
> axil 220lx (more on that later)
> 4/110 - no cpu :(
>
> dec:
> dec 3000/600 <homer> Mmmm, alpha </homer>
> decstation 3100 No ram.  No data. :(
>
> HP:
> HP9000/300 Real old + floppy/HD unit No data.
>
> IBM:
> RS6000/340
> RS6000/320
> No compatible monitors :(
> stuffed with ram/disk/fancy graphics hw :)
>
> plus more monitors and scsi disk boxes than you can
> shake a long sticky stick at.
>
> Obviously, I have no where near enough suns, so I'm
> constantly on the look out in skips/dumpster/such
> like.  All these machines where dumped within Imperial
> College, London, where I was a student.  Very generous
> they were too!
>
> Now, the axil.  Anybody got any data on this beast at
> all?  I got it to boot, by shoving 2x4mb parity simms
> in the first and third slots, and sticking a drive
> with openbsd on it.
>
> I get:
>
> CPU: TMS320S10 (Microsparc) 50Mhz,
> SBUS @ 25Mhz (strangely enough)
> ESP200 (scsi controller) at 40Mhz! (sounds too fast to
> me...)
>
> its got a parallel port, 10baseT/10base5(AUI)
> switchable network, audio, cg6 on board.
>
> On the main board, above the GX chip, there are two
> connectors - anybody know what goes in here?  Ram
> expansion?  24Bit option?
>
> Also, has anybody fanthomed out the memory banking?
> All the info I have says it can take 4-32Mb simms,
> upto a max of four to give 128Mb.
>
> In conclusion WTF is it?
>
> Dave.
>
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