[SunRescue] Sparcstation 20

[Gregory Leblanc]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pixie_fae [mailto:pixie_fae at email.msn.com]
> 
>    I basically garbage picked an old Sun Sparcstation 20 
> recently and dont know too much about it, ive done some 
> research on it and i'm still pretty confused as to what my 
> next step as far as fixing it up should be.
> When i first found it, it had no memory in it, so i picked 64 
> megs up fairly cheap on E-bay. it now powers on and will make 
> a beep so long as i have the keyboard plugged into it. 
> However one of the hard drives spins rather noisilly and i 
> assume its no good (it has 3 hard drives mounted in it 2 of 

I had one that was making a bunch of noise about 2 years ago, and it's still
running fine, so it's hard to say.  If the drives are still under warranty
(check the manufacturer's website), then you can probably return them and
get a new one.

> them are seagates, and one of them is a quantum) anyhow I'm 
> fairly certain that the monitor isn't working, it powers on 
> but will not display anything at all, not even a testpattern. 
> if anyone has any ideas or suggestions as to what would be 
> the next step in resurecting this thing i would love to hear from you.

The SS20 has a 13w3 connector onboard, but it does not do anything unless
you have a special piece of hardware in one of the RAM slots.  The VSIMM
will allow you to use the onboard video connector.  If you don't have one
(and it sounds like you don't), then you need an SBUS video card to get
output to the monitor.  Short of that, get a serial cable to connect to a
terminal or terminal emulator, so that you can see the startup messages.
	Greg