[rescue] Sparc Classic Resurrection for Newbie

[Don McClure]

on 1/5/02 9:17 AM, Joshua Johnston at flagg at midmaine.com wrote:

> Hi there, folks.
> 
> A friend of mine presented me with a gift I'd been hoping to
> land for several years, my very own Sparc Classic.  Now, the problem
> comes in that I can't seem to figure out what my next step is to be
> other than either ordering a keyboard from someone on eBay, or trying to
> butcher together a serial connection with my PC so I can get into the
> BIOS and try to find some way to install an OS that I can work with.
> It's a salvage job from an MIT lab, it appears, and likely has some kind
> of hacked up system that won't work outside the campus, so I'll need to
> install a system clean.

Don't expect much help for newbies around here, the attitude is RTFM.
Anyway, I have  been down this road. Don't spend much/any money on this guy,
at least on things that can't be used on better sparcs, what with the price
of Ultra 1's down under $200, and SS5, 10, 20's almost being given away.

I got a keyboard/mouse on ebay, and put together a null modem cable from a
Macintosh serial cable and parts found at Radio Shack. I use an old
PowerBook as a terminal (we are PeeCeeFree around here). There are monitor
adapters available, but they don't work with just any monitor, so I found a
17" Sun locally for about 70 bucks.

Hopefully it won't need a new NVRAM battery... Check the rescue archives.

I ran OpenBSD on my Classic for a while, then played with Solaris 2.51. Now
its running NetBSD. I learned a lot just in the process of installing these
OS's.

> I'm hoping people on this list might be able to toss me some
> suggestions of resources online other than Sun's tech spec page which I
> already found.  It seems rather tricky to find a Sparc Restoration sort
> of page that has a list of things to do, which would be rather nice.
Again, check the rescue archives, and google usenet.
There is/was a manual PDF for the Classic/LX available on Sun's web site.
Happy hunting!

> Here's what I have to work with.
> Sparc Classic 4/15
> 24M of RAM
Not enough for much. More ram could cost almost the price of a nice SS10,
and isn't usable in better sparcs TMK.

> Unknown HD
50 pin SCSI's will work. There isn't room for any thicker then about an
inch.

> Unknown FB
> (Shows both FRU 5012200 and 5012264 on stickers on board)
Classics come with CG3 onboard. There is a FB FAQ on the sunhelp page.

> Floppy Drive

> No CD-ROM
These are cheap on ebay. I've also found them for practically nothing at
Goodwill. It needs to work in 512k blocks. Some of the Apple branded drives
will work (600E?).

> No Keyboard
> No Monitor

> No Mouse
I'd avoid the optical mouse if possible. PITA. If you get one, make sure it
comes with a pad.

> - Josh
Though lately I've been more interested in SGI hardware, I've enjoyed
playing with Suns, and have learned much lurking on this list for the past
year or so.

Don McClure
Bel Air, MD