[rescue] Good deal or not?

[rescue at sunhelp.org]

> So getting two of the ss10s here would be a loss as I
> would not be able to combine the two cpus into one
> ss10 due to a limitation on the processors, not a limitation 
> on the ss10 itself.
Correct.  James is an authority on Sparc SMP and I'm not,
but a good rule of thumb is that you need two SMx1 processors
from a similar "vintage" for compatibility, where x=[45678].
You also need an OpenBoot PROM that will support those processors,
if you get up to SM71/81 (IIRC the SM41/51/61 is supported
by most any OBP you're likely to find.)

> 
> 	Which then brings a new round of questions then.
> 	
> 	1. What is the going price for RAM in a ss10. is $20 
> worth it for a seocnd one just to get the 32 megs of ram in it.
Not worth it just for memory.  Having another chassis/power
supply could be useful, though.  64MB DSIMMs, the largest
that will fit in this case, routinely have shown up on eBay
for $20 each lately.

> 	2. I have a ss4 and ss5 and a couple ipcs at home.
> would it be possible (and worth while ) to use the extra
> cpu if I take the ram from one of these ss10 to upgrade
> one of these units (assuming they have a worse
> processor).
Nope.  SS4/5 are sun4m architecture, but they have the
processor on the motherboard rather than MBus slots.
IPCs are sun4c.  So the SS10 processors aren't any good--
in fact, an SM20 like this can't even be used in an
SS20 or any other MBus system, to my knowledge, because
of bus clock speeds.

Memory from IPC is not interchangeable with SS4/5, and
neither of those types has memory that is interchangeable
with an SS10.

If you really want a good SS10, this is not where to start.
If you want a cheap one for tooling around and playing,
then this might be okay.

  --Rip