Date: Thu, 4 Dec 97 18:14:08 EST From: Dwight McKay (The Moderator) Reply-To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #42 To: Suns-at-Home-List Suns-at-Home Digest Thu, 4 Dec 97 Volume 10 : Issue 42 Today's Topics: "Retired" Sun Equipment Comments on several questions IPC again... Performane comparisons of SS5 / SS10 Sun 3/60 and keyboards (2 msgs) Sun 4/110 BAD TRAP Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #41 (5 msgs) +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Submissions: suns-at-home \ | | Requests: suns-at-home-request > @net-kitchen.com | | Archives: suns-at-home-archives / | | WWW Archive access: http://www.net-kitchen.com/~sah | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 21 Nov 1997 23:46:57 -0700 From: "Brian Lucius" Subject: "Retired" Sun Equipment To: Greetings All, I apologize in advance if this is "abuse" of the mailing list, however I have several suns in search of another home. Hopefully the home of another collector. I will be moving soon and would prefer not to take 2- 3/160's, a 3/280, and a fujitsu (M2444) 9-track drive with me. I realize they're not worth a whole lot (with the exception of the drive), so I'm not asking much, may be inclined to split shipping for the right price... The machines are located in the Denver, CO area. For the low-down on each of these machines please see: http://www.concentric.net/~brianjl/forsale.shtml Might consider parting out if eventually no offers are had; for those that are in need of VME parts. Thanks for your time, Brian brianjl@concentric.net - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 13:19:20 -0500 From: John DiMarco Subject: Comments on several questions To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com In message <199711220204.VAA24273@tigger.net-kitchen.com> Craig Dewick writes: >> Before I go to the expense of tracking down Official Sun Memory for this >> (is this actually available now?) I would just like to confirm that I >> cannot put standard PC 30 pin SIMMS in there (with/without parity?) >> instead. Anyone done this? > >You can definitely use normal 30-pin 4 meg *parity* SIMM's in a Sparc-2. Any >speed of 80 ns or faster should work fine. Try to avoid the 3-chip >full-parity SIMM's - they give problems in most of the older machines. Another thing worth mentioning -- SS2 simms need to be graded 80ns, i.e. they absolutely have to be 80ns or faster; the SS2 does not tolerate SIMMS even a little slower than 80ns (unlike many systems which take 80ns memory). In any case, stick to 70ns or faster SIMMS to be safe. In message <199711220204.VAA24273@tigger.net-kitchen.com> wanderer writes: >This may be a dumb question, but can somebody tell me what the >performance comparison is between a SS5 with a 75Mhz processor >and a SS10 with a SM41 / SM51 or SM61 processor is in terms of >MIPS, SPECint's etc? In future, you might consider checking some of the benchmark tables on the net (eg. ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/jdd/spectable) In any case, I'm not sure what a 75MHz SS5 is (certainly Sun never sold such a machine), but in practice, we find an SS10/40 to perform about the same as an SS5/85 (yes, we still have all sorts of those machines in active service), so you're probably better off with the SS10, particularly since you can add or replace processors if you like. The only reason I can think of to pick the SS5 over the SS10 would be if you wanted to run jobs with working sets significantly larger than 1MB; external cache misses are quite expensive on Sun's SuperSPARC systems (I believe things are not quite as bad if you use HyperSPARC modules, however). >Reason I'm asking is that I'm considering buying a SS10 to replace >my trusted little IPX. You can consider saving some money and getting a Weitek PowerUP; it replaces the 40MHz processor in the IPX with an 80/40 Mhz one that's a fair bit faster. I bet this'll cost a fair bit less than an SS5 or SS10, and should perform nearly as quickly as the SS5. Regards, John -- John DiMarco Office: SF2101 CSLab Systems Manager Phone: 416-978-5300 University of Toronto Fax: 416-978-1931 http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~jdd - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 01 Dec 1997 05:19:09 PST From: "J Hughes" Subject: IPC again... To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com right, I *wrote* in last week about it looking for le0 and not being able to find it. a simple IFCONFIG le0 down takes care of that, thankfully. now, it keeps turning back an error message about RPC and statd . it says RPC port mapper is not working. the machine name is ws02 , which I guess means workstation 2 and it keeps saying it cant statd ws01. it was one of a set of two machines. ideas.?. also, when I type in BOOT CDROM at the OK prompt, how long should I expect it to take? it gets to "boot device (whatever the CD is) files and args, then it seems to hang. thank you for your time OJ Hughes UK s9700934@hotmail Toast@hughesm.force9.net ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 16:45:38 -0500 From: adh@an.bradford.ma.us (Sandwich Maker) Subject: Performane comparisons of SS5 / SS10 To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com - ------------------------------ From: Edward wanderer To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com Hi, This may be a dumb question, but can somebody tell me what the performance comparison is between a SS5 with a 75Mhz processor and a SS10 with a SM41 / SM51 or SM61 processor is in terms of MIPS, SPECint's etc? nit: there never was a ss5-75. they came in -70, -85, -110, and now -170. a ss5-85 should be pretty close to a ss10-41. I checked the various FAQ's but could not find any related info. Reason I'm asking is that I'm considering buying a SS10 to replace my trusted little IPX. if you can afford it, go for the 10. obviously it has room for growth that the 5 doesn't have, but it's also better than a 20 in some ways - it has better cooling, especially for the disks; it will take 'normal' half-height hard drives. on the negative side, the sbus and mbus are slower than a 20, and it has no space for an internal cd-rom. ___________________________________________________________________________ Andrew Hay Dear Diary: Late to work today -- internet rambler Watch stopped, thought time did too. adh@an.bradford.ma.us Was I ever embarrassed! - ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Nov 97 10:11:31 PST From: perryh@pluto.rain.com (Perry Hutchison) Subject: Sun 3/60 and keyboards To: mah@eecs.tulane.edu > From: "Mark 'Hex' Hershberger" > Subject: Sun 3/60 and keyboards > > I have a 3/60 ... Is there anyway I can hook > up the newer Type 4 keyboard (or a PC keyboard)? To use a type 4 keyboard, you just need the proper cable, such as Sun part # 530-1478-02. Someone makes (or used to make) an adapter box to enable use of PC keyboards and mice with Suns. I don't remember the manufacturer. - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 10:27:20 -0800 (PST) From: James Lockwood Subject: Sun 3/60 and keyboards To: Dwight McKay > Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 10:37:27 -0600 (CST) > From: "Mark 'Hex' Hershberger" > Subject: Sun 3/60 and keyboards > To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com > > I have a 3/60 "on loan" pretty much permanantly from the school here. > I am using it as an X-Terminal off of my Linux box. Right now, > though, I'm stuck using the Type 3 keyboard. Is there anyway I can hook > up the newer Type 4 keyboard (or a PC keyboard)? Sure. The signals are identical, the connectors are just different. You can build a simple cable using the pinouts in the Sun Hardware Reference, I'm sure they're in there. Sun also sold the cable you're looking for with the 4/100 family of Suns, IIRC. As far as using a PC keyboard goes, the easiest way would be to build the type 3 -> type 4 cable and then get the PC to Sun keyboard converter box from SunExpress (about $75). Unless you've got a PC keyboard you really love, I'd stick with the type 4 (one of my all time faves). -James ============================================================================= James D. Lockwood The Getty Information Institute System Administrator 1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 300 james@gii.getty.edu Los Angeles, CA 90049-1680 - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 22:19:34 -0500 (EST) From: Daniel S Kosack Subject: Sun 4/110 BAD TRAP To: suns-at-home@tigger.net-kitchen.com I may have brought this up once before, but I've been doing research and want to confirm my findings (or hypothesis) before proceeding further. I've got a 4/110 at home, running (or, trying to run) 4.1.3_U1A. It's diskless, running off a FreeBSD 2.1.6 server. Swap, root, and user directories are in the /export directory on FreeBSD (/export is ONE partition. root = /export/rootdir user = /export/userdir swap = /export/swapfile which is an actual file of 12MB in size, all zeros created by dd if=/dev/zero ...) I've exported /export on the FreeBSD machine using -alldirs option, so I can mount subdirectories of that tree simultaneously on the SunOS machine. ALSO: FreeBSD machine /export partition is only 300MB. The 2GB limit of SunOS is not an issue. Ok. Here's the funny bit. 'update' causes a BAD TRAP bus error (kernel read error) and a data fault panic a few moments after the login prompt comes up (About a minute, maybe a little less or more). Now, I disable update and all goes good; I can run ps, ls, ifconfig (i did this to fix the broadcast address once; I had disabled update and noticed I forgot to set broadcast high and the proper netmask. Setting them correctly did not help, BTW, not that I thought they would). So, the machine stays up for several minutes, UNTIL I do a 'df'.... SHAZAM!!!! BAD TRAP data fault... you get the picture. When I brought this up earlier on Sun-Managers (only mentioning update) they said it could be bad RAM... well, I run sundiag, the PROM mem checker, and all's good. Single user mode is quite stable too, although I've never done a df. I reboot again, and don't touch df for a while (all good, but never a successful df). I tried to do an "add_user" then, and SHAZAM, df was called in that script and we get BAD TRAP kernel read error on df. So, I'm thinking this (coming to close): SunOS does not like the same file system being mounted 2-3 times. BAD TRAPs are caused apparently by having the kernel read out of its bounds. As I recall from when I used to use 4.1.3_U1 at work long ago, it didn't even let you mount multiple file systems or export multiple file systems of the same partition. QUESTION: Is there an easy fix that doesn't involve me moving swap, root, and user ALL to different partitions on my host? Is there some old patch I can get that will inadvertantly help me? Should I try something with loopback mounting? I'm getting frustrated and figure I'd call for help before going nuts! Thanks! Dan Kosack - ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 05:19:46 -0600 From: "n.w. choe" Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #41 To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com >Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 10:37:27 -0600 (CST) >From: "Mark 'Hex' Hershberger" >Subject: Sun 3/60 and keyboards >To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com > >I have a 3/60 "on loan" pretty much permanantly from the school here. >I am using it as an X-Terminal off of my Linux box. Right now, >though, I'm stuck using the Type 3 keyboard. Is there anyway I can hook >up the newer Type 4 keyboard (or a PC keyboard)? > >Thanks for your help. Yes, you need an adapter though. It is possible to take an ordinary Din-8 serial cable (the kind used on the macintosh) and make two such adapters. i believe the pinouts are available in the sun hardware faq (as is this question, to tell the truth). i keep a copy of the FAQ, as well as some other links, at http://boop.xensei.com/sun/ . -- n-choe@uchicago.edu "Follow your dreams. You can reach your goals, I'm living proof. Beefcake! BEEFCAKE!" -- Eric Cartman - ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 05:42:59 -0600 From: "n.w. choe" Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #41 To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com >Date: Sun, 16 Nov 1997 21:43:45 +0000 >From: MJ Hughes >Subject: SPARC IPC >To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com > >My (got yesterday for a really knockdown price, of three hubcaps and a >bottle opener) SPARCstation IPC looks very nice on my desk, with all its >external storage packs, and 19" monitor. >It doesn't work properly yet, but it looks nice... > >I am having several problems with it. >1) It keeps returning an error message, saying it cant access (the >device) le0, >it does this every 30 seconds or so. >It reports this as being on Sbus slot 0, >this being the system bus on an IPC, >I think it was used as a network server, >and I would imagine that se0 is the network connection. le0 stands for "lance ethernet"; the other chipset for the ethernet is "intel ethernet" that is, "ie0". if you're at home, with no ethernet, just put a transceiver on it (a thinnet/10b2) with the terminators. should be around $20 from datacomm warehouse. and $5 for a "T" and two terminators from radio shack... RG58 is the connector type... 50 ohm i believe, off the top of my head. out of curiosity, why do you think it should be se0? just curious. >2) it refuses to format any disks, saying that they are the wrong >density, >I have tried a couple of different disks, and none of them work. I've found that using floppies, in my opinion, is mostly not worth the effort... 1.4mb's is generally not big enough for anything i'm interested in moving, but that could be just me. i haven't had such difficulties. maybe your drive is broken? >4) how DO i get the simms out? We had a thread about this recently on the list... my personal suggestion was using needlenose pliers and pulling up gently with little tugs on the left and right ends of the simms (a little bit at a time, not one mighty lunge). other people suggested those simm remover tools and suchlike. >OJH > >OJH@hughesm.force9.net > >- ------------------------------ > >Date: Sat, 15 Nov 1997 14:04:22 PST >From: "J Hughes" >I just got a SPARC IPC system today, and am a *little lost*, because my >previous experience only covers Linux on the PC ("StartX, StartX damn >you!!") and the previous users had one of those wonderfully *diverse* >set-ups... /usr/openwin/bin/openwin may work... >the SPARC IPC appears to have 30 pin sockets, and I have heard that the >386i, with the same sockets will happily take standard 9 chip true >Parity RAM. >does this hold for the IPC? that's right. 100ns or faster (not a huge problem). nine-chip parity preferred over 3-chip. groups of four. I'm not sure what speed the 386i requires, but the ipc i think is 100ns. the ss2 is 80ns. faster is always good-- that is, it'll work, though not necessarily any better. the ipc may be 80ns, but it may work with 100. >Also, >I was wondering how to set about doing a clean install from CD-ROM, of >Solaris. 1. need to find solaris. 2.4 is about the earliest version 'recommended'. 2.5.1 is ok, and 2.6 of course is new. with a full license from sun that's fairly expensive. some people on the 'net sell just the media, which is of course not legal in terms of getting support and whatnot. this is suns-at-home though, so well, i don't know. I was happy with 2.5.1, since it makes getting PPP somewhat easier than on 2.4. I dont have experience with 2.6 yet. after 2.4, you may even get CDE, which is very pretty, though it does use resources quite a bit. 28mb of disk space, and a lot of RAM. common desktop environment = CDE. multiple workspaces, etc. motif-style window manager as opposed to open look. (olwm is available as an option). 2. need to find a sun-bootable cdrom. someone on misc.forsale.computers.workstation is apparently selling 2x (fast enough for loading software) for $15 each. (but you need to buy them in quantities of 3 or more, apparently. btw, i'm not related to that person and can't even say if they're legitimate). the sun cdrom FAQ has instructions on how to modify a toshiba 3401b to make it boot a sun. many cdroms for pc's and macs won't work because they run with 2048-byte blocks rather than the 512-byte blocks needed for a Sun. i have a copy of the Sun hardware FAQ as well as other resources available on: . it's reasonably up to date, i think. 3. you connect it all up-- the cdrom is usually scsi id 6-- and turn them all on. 4. press L1-A (stop-A on a type 4/5 keyboard) 5. get to an open boot (new-style) prompt of "ok>" (you may need to type "n") 6. type "boot cdrom" 7. install and go i can't remember at this time whether or not newer suns with openboot can have problems and may require you to type something more like boot (0,30,6) or whatnot. it's in the FAQ though i think ;) hope this gives you a hint. i think that both the above email addresses are you, the same person... note to you (and anyone else out there) if you send email from hotmail.com you may have difficulty reaching me because i may be filtering it out... so if that is the case, send it from another source. -- n-choe@uchicago.edu "Follow your dreams. You can reach your goals, I'm living proof. Beefcake! BEEFCAKE!" -- Eric Cartman - ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 12:32:18 +1100 (EST) From: rachel@nepean.uws.edu.au Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #41 To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com > Date: Sun, 16 Nov 1997 21:42:24 -0100 > From: wanderer > Subject: Performane comparisons of SS5 / SS10 > To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com > > Hi, > > This may be a dumb question, but can somebody tell me what the > performance comparison is between a SS5 with a 75Mhz processor > and a SS10 with a SM41 / SM51 or SM61 processor is in terms of > MIPS, SPECint's etc? Believe it or not, the SM51 and SM61 CPUs seem to be quite a bit faster than the MicroSPARC chips found in the SS4 and SS5. We have an SS4 at work with the 110Mhz MicroSPARC CPU, and my home SS20 with the SuperSPARC SM61 feels almost twice as fast. I don't have the spec rates at hand to prove this, but overall from an end user point of view the SM61 is much faster. It probably has something to do with the 1MB CPU cache, and the fast 50Mhz SBUS the SS20 has. > I checked the various FAQ's but could not find any related info. It's all out there, just not in one place! > Reason I'm asking is that I'm considering buying a SS10 to replace > my trusted little IPX. Well, they're both Sun4m architecture, so you have the benefits of that state of the art. The SS10 has the additional advantage of 16bit audio and BRI ISDN (needs speakerbox) and also you can add a 24bit SX graphics option. I went with a SPARC20 rather than a SPARC10 because the model is a much more recent one, but they are very similar apart from that. The SS10 differs from the SS20 in that it has a slightly slower SBUS, and uses standard SCSI 2 50 pin connectors instead of the more proprietry 60 pin SCA connectors. The SS5 shares the SCA form with the SS20. The external packaging is also very similar. SS10 also suffers more heat problems than the SS20, due to the internal layout of the board and fan units (SS20 should generally supply 3 fan units). An SS5 will also have 16bit Internal Audio, (no speakerbox required) but no ISDN, and will also have provision for an internal floppy and CDRom drive. The SS10 only allows for the floppy. The SS5 can have a maximum of 256MB of RAM, whereas the SS10/SS20 can hold up to 512MB (448 with the SX option) The SS5 can have an S24 24bit graphics option, but recent USENET posts indicates it's dismally slow. The SX option is very quick though, for a 24bit graphic. Part of me says to go for the SS10, since your CPU options are greater, since you can buy a base unit with an SM50, 51 or 61, then go for the faster CPU later, or even provide a Dual or Quad CPU option. The addition of an 8MB SX card gives you an excellent home workstation ;) The SCA disk is a little more expensive than the standard SCSI disk as found in IPC/IPX/SS10 etc. There is also a proprietry disk cradle required for the SS5/20. The MicroSPARC CPU in the SS5 I do not believe is easily upgradeable except later versions (85mhz +) I think are socketed, allowing up to 170Mhz. Personally, I feel the SS10 is better, but the SS5 is much newer technology. It was this factor alone (and the 24bit SX option) that made me go for the SS20 rather than the SS10 even though it was (not quite) double the price. Whatever you go for, you`re bound to get an excellent bit of hardware, however! rachel -- Rachel Polanskis Kingswood, Greater Western Sydney, Australia grove@zeta.org.au http://www.zeta.org.au/~grove/grove.html r.polanskis@nepean.uws.edu.au http://www.nepean.uws.edu.au/ccd/ "Yow! Am I having fun yet?!" - John Howard^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Zippy the Pinhead - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 00:14:54 -0800 (PST) From: James Lockwood Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #41 To: Dwight McKay > Date: Sun, 16 Nov 1997 21:42:24 -0100 > From: wanderer > Subject: Performane comparisons of SS5 / SS10 > To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com > > Hi, > > This may be a dumb question, but can somebody tell me what the > performance comparison is between a SS5 with a 75Mhz processor > and a SS10 with a SM41 / SM51 or SM61 processor is in terms of > MIPS, SPECint's etc? > > I checked the various FAQ's but could not find any related info. > > Reason I'm asking is that I'm considering buying a SS10 to replace > my trusted little IPX. IMHO, the SS10 is the best bargain as far as mid-range pre-Ultra used Suns go. I'm typing this message on a SS10/61, and I've never looked back. You get more expandability than the SS5's and a lot lower price than the SS20's, and the Ross HyperSPARC modules are falling in price rapidly. Anyways, there is no such thing as a 75MHz SS5. The SS5 came in 70MHz, 85MHz, 110MHz, and (recently) 170MHz. There's also a 160MHz upgrade chip available from Fujitsu that plugs into the CPU socket of a SS5, but it's a bit overpriced IMHO ($800/ea). Here are the specs I have handy: System CPU ClkMHz Cache SPECint SPECfp Info Name (NUMx)Type ext/in Ext+I/D 92 92 Date ================= ========== ======= ========== ======= ======= ===== Sun SS5/70 MicroSP2 70 16/8 57.0 47.3 Mar94 Sun SS5/85 MicroSP2 85 16/8 65.3 53.1 May95 Sun SS5/110 MicroSP2 110 16/8 78.6 65.3 May95 Sun SS10/40 SuprSP 40 20/16 50.2 60.2 Apr93 Sun SS10/41 SuprSP 40/40.3 1M+20/16 53.2 67.8 Apr93 Sun SS10/51 SuprSP 40/50 1M+20/16 65.2 83.0 Apr93 Sun SS10/61 SuprSP 40/60 1M+20/16 77.4 99.1 Mar94 So as you can see, the mid-range Sparc 10's (51, 61) are on a par with the higher-end SS5's for performance. IMHO the SS10's actually do better than the numbers indicate, the 1mb of ecache on the 51 and 61 seems to make a substantial difference. My advice to you is not to pay the premium for Sun Mbus modules, but look at the Ross modules unless you can get a really great package deal. The 100MHz HyperSPARC's are on a par with the SM61 modules performance-wise, and are quite a lot cheaper. A dual or quad HyperSPARC system really flies for MP work. SS10 memory is also dirt-cheap at this point. 16mb Sun-barcoded DIMMs are only $50/ea from Ken Olsen (http://www.memoryx.com) and with 8 DIMM slots you can go to 128mb easily using these cheap SIMMs. -James ============================================================================= James D. Lockwood The Getty Information Institute System Administrator 1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 300 james@gii.getty.edu Los Angeles, CA 90049-1680 - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 08:49:42 -0500 (EST) From: Rick Leir EPS Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V10 #41 To: Dwight McKay > though, I'm stuck using the Type 3 keyboard. Is there anyway I can hook > up the newer Type 4 keyboard (or a PC keyboard)? Use the xkeycaps program (freely available) by Jamie Zawinski to reassign the keys on your Type 3 keyboard. Rick Leir rleir@igs.net http://www.igs.net/~rleir It's not the size of the dog in a fight that counts, but the size of the fight in the dog. -- Jim Barksdale - ------------------------------ End of Suns-at-Home Digest ******************************