[rescue] Sparcstation 2 help! Please

[BSD Bob the old greybeard BSD freak]

> After shorting out the nvrams, I had a major BREAKTHROUGH! The SS2 booted
> all the way to the OK prompt. The memory check took about 3 minutes to run
> through 64 mgs of RAM. Maybe that was because I forgot to put the video card
> back in????? Anyway, I finally got the Ethernet address = ff ff ff ff and
> host name =ffffffff, so the nvram is shot, (as you all surmised).

Good!  That probably meant the nvram had insufficient voltage to hold its
memory correctly and was losing bits here and there.  Shorting it cleared
the offending bits.

ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff == dead nvram..... battery reinstallation required.

Too bad the manufacturer did not forsee such battery problems, and allow
for some sort of external tabs onto which to later add an external sort
of power source or additional battery.  If you cut one of the nvram
critters apart, you will see it has a battery and xtal or maybe two
batteries and xtal in the top shell casting.  I guess they wanted you
to buy more nvrams.  What happens when the manufacturing is totally
stopped and shelf-stock loses its batteries.... possibly 5 years from
now.  Then us retrogeeks wanting to keep them running will have to
fall back to rebatterying as a solution.  Or, keep a 4/100 cpu around
(one of the last non-battery nvram cpus from Sun).

> I am trying to bring a little enlightenment to my first year networking
> students, we are a "Microsoft Training Partner" and I want to show them
> other things.

Ohh, kudos, for sure.  Properly done, I am sure they will see some
good things.  At the minimum, set up the box as an ftp site and an
html server with Apache, and compare the networking with the Billyboxes.

IFF you want to show desktop, then Linux is good.  It has all the latest
gilliwidgets and gadgets.  It can be problematic to keep up with, though.

IFF you want to show networking, use NetBSD or OpenBSD only.  They are
both rock solid in that mode, but not quite as gilliwidget overboard
as Linux for frills.  That can be a good thing, though.

> soooooooo, given this latest update, if I replace the nvram and load a lite
> weight OS on there, am I good to go?

Well, I would highly recommend some additional bits for the critter.

1.  GOOD 19 inch monitor, or at least one of the 17 inchers.
    A 19 incher is better for class use, but the later model
    Exx 17 inchers usually have sharper screens.

2.  Rollerball mouse.  Optical mice are OK, but generally a pain.

3.  Sun cdrom.  Nothing else really works as good.  An old single
    speed will do.

4.  As much drive space as you can muster internally and externally.
    I try to minimally put a pair of 1g drives in my SS2/SS1 pizza
    box thingies, so one can at least load up a goodly software suite.
    After that a double external drive box of some sort is good, and
    that can give them lots of play/crash/fun space.  Put the OS on
    the first drive, and home play space on the second, and misc
    ftp/http/whatever elsewhere... i.e., keep stuff segmented to
    minimize student crash recovery, if needed.

> Anybody had any luck writing the education grant with SUN?

Sounds interesting, but not my bailiwick.  I am getting too close
to retirement.....(:+}}...

> Thanks to all!

Yer most welcome!

Bob

> David