[SunRescue] can I repost your mails?

[James Lockwood]

On Thu, 30 Mar 2000, Amy wrote:

> On Thu, 30 Mar 2000, Gregory Leblanc wrote:
> 
> > Oooh, graphics towers, huh?  SLOW, from what I hear, but it might be cool to
> > have.  Do you know what they wanted for it?  Anybody know what I can run it
> > with (OS, hardware)?  I've got SunOS 4.1.4_1U or something, although no
> > media, but all of the original manuals.  Anybody know where I can get a copy
> > of media for that so I can run it on my 4/330?
> > 	Greg
> 
> i think they were selling for ten bucks each. and i believe bill mentioned
> that they run on the real heavy pizzabox 3/60's and 3/80's. (i hope i got
> those numbers right). we used one of them for a tv stand, if that gives an
> idea of sheer weight of those little ones.

If they are the GT Graphics Towers, they are in 3-slot VME chassis similar
to the 4/110's (but with better ventilation).  3D acceleration is provided
by an i860XP, the whole mess was originally sold to connect to a SS2 or
SS10 (LSI rev B) via a special sbus card and cable.  They should work on
any other sun4m box except the 4/600, though. 

Should run under SunOS 4.1.3 or later using Sun-supplied openwin, or
Solaris 2.3-2.4.  It provides 1280x1024 in 24bpp and is tolerably fast at
linedrawing but very slow for blitting bitmaps.  I had one on my SS2
running 2.4 for a while with an IBM 6091/19 monitor.

3D acceleration is XGL only.  If you have XGL apps (some of the ones on
the Ultra Pluspack work well) and a fast CPU it's not a bad performer for
shaded polys.

If they don't have the card and cable then don't even touch it unless you
just want the VME chassis.  They're difficult to find seperately.

-James