[Closed] Sun Ultrasparc 5

You mean an Ultra 5 or a Sparcstation 5?

It says Ultrasparc but the pic looks like a workstation so I am guessing it's the latter.

Used to dream about owning a Sun workstation, but I don't know what you'd do with it. Does it come with any software or can you stick Linux on it?

Doesn't matter - Solaris is a free download, and if OP wants one should be able to install software himself

You can run reasonably late versions of Solaris on those processors I think so the main limitation for getting stuff to run on it would be how much disk and processor it has.

I've mostly moved onto Linux on Intel these days however I've still got an aging Enterprise 250 which is from a similar era. Doesn't get used much now but it does host some reasonably up-to-date Oracle stuff.

Comes with Solaris 8 disks 🙂

No keyboard or monitor tho it looks like.

[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_5/10 ]Ultra 5[/url]
[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparcstation_5 ]Sparcstation 5[/url]

Both use SPARC chips so you'd need Solaris (SPARC not x86). I doubt wether either of these are supported on Solaris 10, you'd need to go back to 7 or 8 at a guess but yes you should be able to download it from somewhere and install it. Note also that you won't have a DVD drive, just a CD.

If you do buy it and can't find a Solaris download anywhere let me know as I'll have a copy somewhere. Also if you need any help. I've worked with these a lot over the years (worked for Sun for nearly 10 years).

Good news about Solaris, just check ram and disk size. When I've looked at these in the past these have been pretty small. Not sure what sort of hard drive you'll need, SCSI or IDE?

Ah, you have media, that helps. Depending which model it is you might need a specific adapter for the graphics card if you want to put a monitor on it. I cant imagine you'll run it as a desktop though so would suggest just using the serial port to build it and get it on the network, then just use CLI over a telnet/SSH session.

If it's a SS5 and you do need an adapter for the graphics card let me know.

If it's got a SCSI interface you can pick up older Sun disk storage arrays cheap these days - I've got one of those stacked full of old 36GB SCSI disks, which when combined with the internal drives on the old E250 (which is a fair old beast of a thing) means there is a useable amount of space.

The main restriction on those old boxes is the amount of RAM they'll take - my old E250 is maxed out at 2GB of RAM, which isn't much by todays standards. The Ultra 5 is even worse at a maximum of 512MB, although that'd be enough for learning Unix on.

Looks like the Ultra 5 takes IDE drives.

The pic he has posted looks like the Ultra then. It's apparently a 400MHz ultrasparc II cpu.

I wonder if it could be put to good use.. Probly to energy hungry to run all the time tho.

Don't bother. The nostalgia will wear off then you'll be the one trying to offload some old junk to a dewy eyed 30-something who "used to use them years ago...."

Woody that is what I am thinking will happen 🙂

I went through a phase of hoarding old junk then I realised it was stupid. Esp as it was only like 3-4 year old PC stuff at the time. I used it to set up various servers in the house, but none of the stuff I used it for is needed any more.

All I have now is an Oric 1 and an Atari ST, both of which were our family computers.

dewy eyed 30-something who "used to use them years ago...."

Wrong, dewy eyed 49.
But done that already, only it was a massive Dell server, that only just fitted in the car, and sounded like Concorde taking off when you turned it on. It didn't last long.
Those Sun's still look pretty cool, you could stick some modern PC stuff in them.

I've got a bit of a collection - a couple of BBC Micro's, a ZX81 complete with 16k RAM pack, a 48K Spectrum and various PC/Intel kit, servers and some Sun stuff!

I wouldn't mind an Oric and also a Jupiter Ace.

But done that already, only it was a massive Dell server, that only just fitted in the car, and sounded like Concorde taking off when you turned it on. It didn't last long.

Rack mount stuff can also be a bit of a mistake for home use - very noisy and kicking out loads of heat.

richmars - 49 is defintely 30 something 🙂

I just don't see the point of hoarding old stuff (though admittedly, really old stuff might be valuable). If you want to mess about with Solaris, whack a VM server of some kind on your home PC and fiddle away. 🙂

I sent away for the free Intel Solaris CDs when it was available 🙂

As above, if it's for anything other than nostalgic reasons I wouldn't bother. If you want to learn Solaris download OpenSolaris and put it in a virtual machine.

If it is for nostalgic reasons the U5 isn't a particularly good choice IMO, go for something older and SBUS based as opposed to PCI.

Molgrips if your in the manchester area i have a sparc 5 you can have for free with keyboard mouse and video vga adapter. has solaris installed not used it for ages though prefer a virtual machine.

Cheers, but I'm not and woody is really quite right, I don't need more junk 🙂

I used to dream of my own little Microvax...

Thinking of all the mud's I'd have hosted...

a stack of 36Gb SCSI drives?

I recently bought a Western Digital USB drive the size of a matchbox that has 500Gb capacity for £75.

How times have moved on!

Mind you, I remember selling 200Mb drives to go alongside HP-UX Servers circa 1990 that cost several tens of thousands of £.

Thinking of all the mud's I'd have hosted...

If it means anything to anyone, I was logged into a PR1ME the other day.

Mol > mate of mine collects vintage hardware, I can ask if he's interested if you want to flog the Oric 1?

Umm.. dunno.. perhaps sentimental value but it's not actually our original one. I'm not that fussed about it, I'm sure there are emulators around 🙂 Ask him how much he'll give me for it.

I played a few MUDs. They were rubbish.

a 48K Spectrum

I keep meaning to pick up a Speccy for a giggle. There's a rumour they're releasing an anniversary one next year (30 years and all that), no idea if that's going to be any sort of sensible format though.

Only bit of interesting nostalgia kit I've got from those days is a copy of Jet Set Willy signed by Matthew Smith.

I played a few MUDs. They were rubbish.

You're dead to me now.

Ask him how much he'll give me for it.

I've pinged him to ask if he wants it (he's probably already got one but can't hurt to ask).

Move about, kill stuff until you level up, everyone says 'gratz'. I never saw the fun in that tbh.

Talkers were much better, but we already discussed that 🙂

I've got an Atari ST, Spectrum + 3 and a QL but no power supplies so can't test if they work, not sure what to do with them.

That takes me back a bit.

The first proper software company I worked at had two Sparc Station 1's which did things like the company file server, backup, and all that stuff, running SunOS. Obviously with their 25MHz clock speed they had no problem keeping up.

The sysadmin guru was very cheesed off with me when I managed to crash the main one by trying to run X11 (after taking many days to actually compile it).

But much later I found myself writing assembler for a Sparc (embedded). What a dreadful piece of junk. All that "superscalar" stuff turns out to be just so much marketing hype to disguise the fact that it's ultimately a pretty silly design. That silly sliding window register file thing. And don't get me started on delay slots.

I've got a ZX81 in the loft, original packaging, manual, full working order.

Must be worth, ooh, about a tenner at a push!

Flipping heck you want to see the antiques we have at work in the store room!!! My favourite though is the VAX box from circa 1985 we still have running 😆

My uni had some DEC Alphas that were pretty ancient when I started in 1994. They threw them out - shame, I'd have had one 🙂

Talkers were much better, but we already discussed that 🙂

Still got my Atari ST 🙂 Been meaning to plug it in for a laugh at some point. Think the 'rents binned the CPC464 and cassettes though 🙁

Know a few people that had a stash of Sun 10's and DEC Alpha 3000's (i think). Might be nostalgic, but a PITA to keep running now (at least the Alpha). Dunno what happened to that stash.

My Atari ST has a hard disk!

Hmph.
If anyone wants my Victor 286 or 386 laptops, they're welcome.
The 286 comes with Mono screen, 20MB disk & Windows 1, I think.
email address in profile

I learned to program in Assembler on a 4 bit ICL System 10 machine.

My how we rejoiced when they bought out the 8 bit System 25 - it had 32Kb of addressable memory per user.

Edit, just had a google;

[i]Early models of the machine had front-loading plastic-encapsulated removable hard disks. However there was a flaw in the design (which was later rectified) where powering off the system caused a spiral write to be executed on the disk drive, rendering the thing unreadable.

When we eventually go the Modification instructions they suggested that we take an oil stone to the spindle while it was turning (instructions were given as to how to achieve this) at a precise angle. Grinding the edge of the cone was supposed to fix the problem. We couldn't believe that this would do it, the problem went away. I still can't believe it.[/i]

So, basically, they asked people to fix a disk drive problem by attacking the spindle they were mounted on with a stone you would normally use to sharpen chisels.

Them were the days.

Silicon Graphics Indy FT Nostalgic + Cool W

a stack of 36Gb SCSI drives?

I recently bought a Western Digital USB drive the size of a matchbox that has 500Gb capacity for £75.

How times have moved on!

They've moved on but your 500Gb drive isn't an alternative to the pile of old 36GB SCSI drives because it'll be very slow in comparison. The SCSI drives are 15K rpm ones and set up as mirror pairs with a database striped across them. That performs ok, despite the drives being old and the processors on the old E250 being about equivalent to a Intel Pentium III. Running the same system on a modern laptop with 4GB of RAM, a Linux VM and an external drive is very slow in comparison.