[rescue] Sparcstation 2 help! Please

[BSD Bob the old greybeard BSD freak]

> It appears that the NVRAM is hosed. This machine has 16x4mg  RAM chips and
> floppy and a HD. My question is this, how much do the NVRAM chips cost? Is
> it worth it to buy the chip or should I just look around Ebay for a machine
> that boots? I paid about $30 for this one. I have keyboard, mouse, and an
> external drive case with 2 Seagate full height drives.

Too much, for what the silly things are worth.  Also, I have heard that
new ones have been cut differently and may not work in some old machines
(anyone have any info on that?).

Anyway, I save up all my old nvram chips and have started to rebattery
them.

Find the nvram faq, and follow it carefully.  I use a plain old mill
bastard file on it, edgwise, and file a notch in the pin-1 end to get
to the battery nibs.  You need to take slow, light even file strokes or
you will clobber the thing. Then I solder a 3.0-3.5 volt PC battery in
place.  Use come velcro (tm) to attach the battery somewhere convenient,
like the top of an adjacen chip, or the side of the case, or somesuch.
CAUTION:  measure the polarity across the nibs with a voltmeter so
you DON'T GET POLARITY BACKWARDS... or bad karma ensueth.  Even a
dead nvram chip will have a few tenths of a volt still, so it is easy
to check and make sure.  Use a 15 watt or so iron, and fine solder wire,
and don't drink too much coffee ahead of time......(:+\\.....

> What SS motherboards fit in this unit? Does anyone want to sell a mobo that
> will fit?

Just the SS2 AFIK.  Also the SS2 drive sleds are different from the SS1
drive sleds, but SS1 sleds can be used if you remove the air flow hole
cover screen welded to the case floor.

>  The reason I am going through is that I think that Sun makes a cool
> machine, and I want to learn more about Unix.

Sure, most Suntoyz are cool (VME crates are cooler, and VAXen even cooler,
but hey, have fun with any of them).  The SS2 will make a good cheap
UNIX learning toy.  You will need to scrounge some sort of Sun monitor
for it.  Most anything with a 13W3 capability and marked Sun on it will
do.  As to OS's for it you are stuck with something pre-Solaris 8 or
maybe NetBSD or OpenBSD.  I like 4.1.3U1 (Solairs 1.1.1) which is
relatively light and dainty compared to later things, or NetBSD like
on this little LX critter I am writing from.

Good Luck!

Bob