[rescue] Sparc Classic & IPX rescue

[Robert Novak]

Hey Fred,

For the IPX memory, you are apparently looking for FPM ECC RAM... you can
put up to 64mb onboard, and I found one source with the 16mb simms for
under $10. (http://www.oempcworld.com/OEMPCworld-com/004467.html). (No
connection with them although I've bought from them before.)

There is also an option to put the "Boris & Natasha" sbus-like memory board
into an IPX--it was designed for the SS2 but the supplemental connector is
on the IPX board too. Be warned that if you don't grind down your power
supply a little bit, you may not be able to remove this memory board
intact. I broke one in '97 trying to remove it.

For the Classic, I believe
http://www.oempcworld.com/OEMPCworld-com/016703.html is the part you want,
again (slightly) under $10 a stick. They *might* be interchangeable, but I
don't remember.

You can also find the appropriate memory at memoryx.com, and all over the
online auction site of your choice as well. :)

I can't guarantee the license, but for this era of hardware, I believe Sun
allowed the use of Solaris if you bought the hardware. You should be able
to run anything up to and including Solaris 7 on IPX (9 on Classic?), and
the O Empire probably won't care, but patches (where available) will be
challenging to find. Creative googling will probably help you locate
academic sites who have publicly available local archives of the
Recommended Patch Clusters and individual patches.

You'll also want to look at earlier threads this month (I think) about the
viable replacements for SunFreeware, which went pay-only in October of this
year.

I had an IPX with 128MB for a while... but a Classic (actually a
"converted" Classic X) with 96mb replaced it and ran Redhat Linux 5.1 for a
long long time. You can apparently run 128mb in those (32x2, 16x4) as well.

Hope this helps.

Rob




On Sat, Dec 14, 2013 at 6:56 PM, Fred <FRED at miser.misernet.net> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Picked up a Classic and IPX recently and finally had time to dig in.  Have
> a
> serial cable on the way, have plenty of SCSI hard drives so I slapped one
> in
> there.  While I'm waiting for the serial cable to arrive so I can hook it
> up to
> my terminal server, I have been pondering operating systems ...
>
> I'd like to run something Solaris-ish.  Is this even legal?  Sure, I could
> run
> NetBSD, Linux, or OpenBSD, but that's too easy.  I'd like to stay "in the
> period" if I can ... I am not *overly* concerned about security as you'll
> have
> to have an account on my main ssh accessible system to get to the Sun(s) -
> I
> won't port forward to them specifically.
>
> I'm also looking for sources of memory for the IPX (it came with none,
> which I
> knew going in).  Any pointers would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Fred
> _______________________________________________
> rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue