[SPARCbook] Sparcbook experiences from new list member

[Michael]

Hello,

On Jan 27, 2009, at 12:01 PM, guikueppers at t-online.de wrote:

> Sparcbook 3GX/3TX:
> The 3GX can be promoted to 3TX by exchanging the cpu-board and  
> firmware,
> mainboards are otherwise the same.

That's good to know. I think I've seen a 3TX CPU board on ebay recently.
( the 3TX was the TurboSPARC one, wasn't it? )

> A battery stick can be built from 10 AA-size nimh cells, however you
> will also need the gas gauge circuitry for the pack. This is  
> essentially
> a BQ2010, a chip which is hard to come by. One source for it is a  
> Compaq
> battery pack p/n 213511-001, the circuit board of which can be built
> into the new battery pack. Additionally an LM335 sensor is needed to
> provide temperature monitoring. Using 2300 mAh cells and running  
> NetBSD
> 4.0 with an Aironet wireless card, the 3TX runs for 80 minutes playing
> an MP3-stream on the internal speaker (disk mostly spun-down).

I have an already tampered with stick - I guess I'll just get a bunch  
of new cells then.

> BTW thanks to those who did the sparcbook support for NetBSD!

Good to know it's useful to someone else :)

> Ultrabook LE:
> Recelling the battery pack with 18650 size 2200 mAh Li-Ion cells, will
> make it run for at least 90 minutes on battery.
> The Ultrabooks' display covers seem to suffer from a constructional
> flaw, i.e. the hinges tend to break out of the plastic material. I  
> have
> two of them, one has a completely brocken back cover, the other one is
> so bad, I don't dare to close it any more. Does someone have a fix for
> this?

I recently got an Ultrabook I, the whole case seems to be metal - not  
quite the same level of solidity as the 3GX but still quite nice.  
There's one problem which you might be able to help with - the battery  
charges just fine, both the battery's built-in indicator and the  
Ultrabook's LCD report it, and the machine certainly survives for  
quite some time on battery. The problem is that the firmware thinks  
battery status is invalid, sets CPU clock to 100MHz and refuses to boot.
Any hints or workarounds?

> Sparcle 500SX:
> Mine has 500MB ram installed and running the Gnome desktop is a pain.
> Contrary to what the manual says, display brightness doesn't seem to  
> be
> adjustable, and the audio system just couldn't be worse. Otherwise  
> it is
> a nice machine which is in regular every day use.

Running Solaris? Maybe try NetBSD or even Linux, Sun's Xserver doesn't  
support Xrender at all on SPARC while Xorg and XFree86 do. Anything  
with anti-aliased fonts will be Real Slow without xrender, even if  
xrender support is software only.
I don't like gnome but KDE was more than usable on an U10 with 512MB  
RAM ( running NetBSD though ) which should be more or less in the same  
ballpark speedwise as the sparcle.

> Things I"m willing to part with (I'm located in Germany):
>
> Sparcbook 2 scsi connector:
> It's not pretty and a bit fragile, as I have put it together myself,  
> but
> it does work and will connect to a 25-pin female D-type connector.  
> This
> one is for free, because I came across the original pigtail.

Isn't that the same funky connector as Apple used in older PowerBooks  
like the 3400c? Rectangular with 6 x 5 holes?

have fun
Michael

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