[SunRescue] CDE ramblings (was: Solaris on older Sparc boxes)

[ward at zilla.nu]

On Wed, Jan 19, 2000 at 12:50:12AM -0800, James Lockwood wrote:
> On Wed, 19 Jan 2000, paul pries wrote:
> 
> > Seems like we have some guys here who are good at HP stuff... :)
> > So lets continue this totally off topic string. First a quick 
> > question; What's so special about HP CD Rom drives?
> > I tried to boot my 715/50 from a sun cd-rom drive but no go.
> > Anyone have a clue about this?
> 
> What kind of Sun cdrom drive?  I use a Toshiba XM4101B (from a SS5) to
> boot all my HP's and it's worked flawlessly.  My old Texel (Plextor) drive
> didn't work at all.

It's got a different firware deal.  The old Toshiba XM3301 drives that the early
snakes shipped with can be modified to boot a sparc, but it involves cutting a
few solder traces.  Weirdness.  Cheaper to get a DAT drive and do it that way.

> > How about the 715/50? It is not in the official lists of 11.0 supported
> > machines. I could try it but it is much easier to ask... ;)
> 
> Go for it.  There is some hardware that will not be supported but the base
> machine should work.

Unfortunately, a lot of that 'some hardware' is the higher-end gfx stuff.  Don't
try it with an external CRX-nnZ box.

> BTW, I'm looking for a cheap copy of HPUX 11.0.  10.20 is easy to get but
> HP wants $$$ for 11.  A 100baseT card for the 712 would be nice but I
> don't think they ever made them.  :)

Convex sold such a beast for test stations (712s).  Might could find one through
what's left of Convex.

Reagen