[rescue] Fixing the NVRAM battery in the SS5

[Sandwich Maker]

" From: "Bryan Gurney" <arb_npx42 at comcast.net>
" 
" My SS5 110 MHz has a nagging problem where its clock lags way behind the  
" actual time.  I don't turn it on that much (I really should; it's a nice  
" quiet box and could tuck away out of sight nicely if given enough  
" airflow), but when I do, the clock is behind.  It can range from days to  
" months behind, depending on how long the box has been powered off.

have you looked at ntp?

do you stop the nvram clock when you power it off?  that greatly
extends the life of that sealed lithium cell.

" It's my first Sun box, and it's been like this ever since I first rescued  
" it in mid-2004, but I can't shake the feeling that someday the NVRAM is  
" going to go completely, and the thing won't boot.  Who sells the things to  
" fix, and what FORTH programming do I have to run through?

see the nvram faq at sunhelp.

" Other dumb question to throw in the mix: is anyone making flash drives  
" that hook up to 80-pin SCA?  That would make for a seriously quiet  
" Sparcstation, and not having to worry about hard drives failing as much  
" (but I think that flash memory does go corrupt over time, and I've heard  
" that it's not as conducive to having data pushed all over the place).

flash has a limited number of write cycles.  it's pretty big, but not
compared to an hd which is virtually infinite.
________________________________________________________________________
Andrew Hay                                  the genius nature
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adh at an.bradford.ma.us                       and think what none thought