[rescue] dead sparc classic ?

[Sheldon T. Hall]

mike tuffs says ...

> I just paid $20.00 for a Sparc Classic, which seemed like a
> good deal, but it does not want to power up. The power-switch
> is a soft-toggle, rather than a hard click switch ...

Yep.  One way is On, the other way is Off.  I assume you've tried both.

> but there is no fan, beeps or anything. Any hints ?

Has it got memory in it?  In the correct slots?  Correctly seated? Did you
try it with the hard drive power connector removed?  Have you got any
peripherals plugged in at all?

IME, the PS in pretty unbreakable.  Mine's run 24/7 here for some years, and
was in a computer lab for 6 years where they never turned 'em off.  I guess
its been running for 12 years, more or less.

> (Also, the CPU seems a little puny, with its plastic cover,
> etc - what speed are these ?)

50 MHz, I think, but you can't compare that with a PC, really.  A SPARC does
a lot more work than a Pentium, per cycle, and the Sun architecture handles
load better.  That said, though, it's more Massey-Ferguson than Maserati.

Mine served as my SOHO LAN's mail/DNS/time/file/backup/everything server for
4 years.  1 HD failure, no other problems.  Those little boxes can do a lot
of work.

-Shel