[SunRescue] Sparc 2 pricing?

[Dave McGuire]

On Mon, 17 Jan 2000, Kris Kirby wrote:
>I've got a friend who wants to sell me a Sparc 2 (with monitor, keyboard,
>and mouse) for $125. The two is the same speed as my IPXes, and I didn't
>pay much for them at all. This seems like a high price for a slow machine,
>no? (CG6 video, is that good?)

  Empty SS2 bases are going for $30-50 pretty much everywhere.  If there's a
decent amount of RAM in it, so much the better.  A CG6 is worth about $40-60
now, I'd guess.  Yes, a CG6 is a good framebuffer.  1152x900x8,
hardware-accelerated.

  As for it being slow...take the CG6 out, put the monitor and keyboard in the
closet, and put the SS2 on a shelf in a rack.  Load up NetBSD (or similar
modern OS, preferably not Solaris 'cause it's far too slow on sun4c's) and
you'll be AMAZED at how much web traffic it can serve.  Or how many machines it
can be a network proxy/firewall for.

  Just don't use it for a workstation unless you're desperate. :-)  But yes, if
it's got some memory and maybe a little disk, I'd probably pay $125 without
griping too much.

                   -Dave McGuire