Date: Mon, 14 Jan 91 11:05:31 EST From: Dwight D. McKay (The Moderator) Reply-To: Suns-at-Home@orchestra.ecn.purdue.edu Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V4 #2 To: Suns-at-Home-List Suns-at-Home Digest Mon, 14 Jan 91 Volume 4 : Issue 2 Today's Topics: Hello help Needed With tape (st) and Boot Errors Sun2 w/ Sun3 Shoebox Problem Resolved; More Stuff Wanted Suns-at-Home Digest V4 #1 what to do with the Ethernet? +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Submissions: suns-at-home \ @orchestra.ecn.purdue.edu | | Requests: suns-at-home-request > -- or -- | | Archives: suns-at-home-archives / ...rutgers!pur-ee!... | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 10 Jan 91 13:03:29 CST From: swansonc@acc.stolaf.edu Subject: Hello To: suns-at-home@ecn.purdue.edu I am a new subscriber to the list and have a question. I will possibly be getting a 2/50 for a bargain price (stock w/ 5 MB). The only problem is that it doesn't come with an OS. Where could I find 3.5.2 or 4.0.3 for cheap. If I have to spend more for the OS than for the CPU, I probably won't buy. Thak's in advance, -Chris Chris Swanson, Chem/CS/Pre-med Undergrad, St. Olaf College, Northfield,MN 55057 INTERNET: swansonc@acc.stolaf.edu UUCP: swansonc@stolaf AT&T: Work: (507)-645-6845 Home: (507)-663-6424 I would deny this reality, but that wouldn't pay the bills... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Jan 91 9:54:37 CST From: Simon Hackett Subject: help Needed With tape (st) and Boot Errors To: Suns-at-Home@ecn.purdue.edu > > My system is an 8-meg Sun 2/50 attached to a Sun3 (I think) shoebox > containing a Toshiba MK 156 disk and a Wangtek 5099EN24 tape drive. > The 2/50 passes all of its disgnostics with no problem, yet when I > fire up the shoebox and try to boot from tape ("b st()"), the tape > drive grinds for a while, but eventually returns the message "st: > sense error". Ahh, this sounds familiar. I tried connecting a sun3 shoebox (same drive, same tape as it happens) to my sun 2/120. The shoebox and tapes are known good. Exactly the same problem happens. Let me explain what I _think_ is happening, and invite more informed opinion from other list members: The tape grinding is a normal consequence of the SCSI reset signal being delivered to the tape drive. So far so good. Then the drive fails to load the tape as you describe. With my 2/120 running, trying to access this tape drive results in initial tape motion then a similar error. What I think is happening is that the tape drive recieves a command, then disconnects itself from the SCSI bus until the command is complete. I _believe_ that this ability of SCSI busses is not supported by the (very old!!) SCSI implementation on Sun 2 hardware. Note this is belief, not proven fact. However, this is supported by noting that (a) the disk drive does talk to the sun 2 just fine, & (b) the disk & tape both work fine on a sun-3/50. What I did was got agro and bought a used sun 3/50. Now I've got that in addition to a 2/50 and a 2/120 (!). Anyone have a cheap sun 4 they want to get rid of? A question to others while I'm at it: Does anyone have any leads on a good place to get sun 2 hardware? In particular, I tried to get a sun 2/50 SCSI board when I was in California recently, but the best price I could do was $575.00 - when the 2/50 only cost me $300.00 in the first place!! Anywhere I can get a cheap ram upgrade for it would be good also. Cheers, Simon Hackett simon@itd.adelaide.edu.au Univerisity of Adelaide, South Australia ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Jan 1991 12:06:23 -0500 (EST) From: Bill_von_Hagen@transarc.com Subject: Sun2 w/ Sun3 Shoebox Problem Resolved; More Stuff Wanted To: Sun2-folks , Suns-at-Home@orchestra.ecn.purdue.edu My Sun 2/50 is finally working!!!! You may recall that I recently posted a request for help getting the 2/50 to recognize and work with a 3/50 shoebox. Here's a quick summary of what the problem was: The basic problem, as many people suggested, was that the PROMs in my 2/50 were too old to recognize the device in the Sun3 shoebox. (I had Rev. Q PROMs.) After everyone's suggestions and a lot of time on the phone with various people at Sun, I finally found out that newer PROMs are indeed available, and got them from Sun for free! I have to commend Sun on their technical phone help - let's face it, the 2/50 is a dinosaur, but the Sun people were still very helpful (though somewhat amused) regarding my efforts to get one running. For anyone else with a 2/50, the part number for the upgrade kit that I finally got is 595-1954. I don't know if the PROM is the same for the other Sun2's, but if not, I'm sure the right one exists. The new PROMs are rev. level 1.1.2. One thing not mentioned in the PROM Upgrade Instructions sheet was the fact that I had to change the J500 jumpers from 1-2 and 5-6 to 3-4 and 5-6. Once I added the new PROMs and changed the jumpers, the system recognized the Sun3 shoebox immediately. After that, everything else worked normally (format, install, etc.). Here's my latest gonzo hardware request: I'm now looking for a 9-track (reel-to-reel) tape drive (preferable 800/1600/6250) that I can use from the Sun2. I need this for easy portability of data for some personal projects I'm working on. Do you have anything like this, or know of anything like this that ever existed? Of course, since I have a 2/50, it has to be SCSI. I see lots of Cipher drives floating around - are there Cipher or Pertec -> SCSI converters (or something similar, for other drive types) available? I'd REALLY appreciate any help you could give me on this!!! I have a lot of old data on 9-tracks which I need access to. Thanks for everyone's help!!! Bill ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Jan 1991 09:44:20 -0600 (CST) From: "Anthony A. Datri" Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V4 #1 To: Suns-at-Home@ecn.purdue.edu Check the RTF. You probably just need to un-write-protect the tape when booting from it. Strange but true, with older drives and boot proms. -- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Jan 91 12:20:08 EST From: smb@ulysses.att.com Subject: what to do with the Ethernet? To: suns-at-home@orchestra.ecn.purdue.edu My apologies if this has been asked before -- I checked the index files, but didn't spot it. What does one do with the Ethernet port? Adding a transceiver and two terminators seems needlessly expensive. Ifconfig'ing it down might work, I suppose, if one is using SLIP or PPP. What I was thinking of was building a ``drop cable terminator''. That is, if I looped back the two transmit wires to the two receive wires in the 15-pin cable, will the Sun think that a transceiver is connected? I have this urge to put a resistor in the jumper, just as a current limiter, though I confess I have no idea what value to use. I think I've seen something very much like this from DEC: a 15-pin connector (with a blinkenlight in the hood) that comes with DELNIs. Comments? --Steve Bellovin smb@ulysses.att.com ------------------------------ End of Suns-at-Home Digest ******************************