Date: Mon, 14 Sep 92 09:18:47 EST From: Dwight D. McKay (The Moderator) Reply-To: Suns-at-Home@orchestra.ecn.purdue.edu Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V5 #34 To: Suns-at-Home-List Suns-at-Home Digest Mon, 14 Sep 92 Volume 5 : Issue 34 Today's Topics: V5 #33 & 3/50 Memory Upgrades (3 msgs) +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Submissions: suns-at-home \ @orchestra.ecn.purdue.edu | | Requests: suns-at-home-request > -- or -- | | Archives: suns-at-home-archives / ...rutgers!pur-ee!... | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 Sep 92 12:06:29 CST From: Simon Hackett Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V5 #33 To: Suns-at-Home@ecn.purdue.edu > 1. Can the sun 3/50 be expanded to >4Mb of memory? I looked in the > sun-at-home archives, and there seemed some debate about this, but I > couldn't find whether it was resolved definitely one way or another. > If so, what form does it take -- from looking at the board, it only > fits 4M of chips, is there an expansion bus I didn't notice? There is no expansion connector on the 3/50 for memory expansion (or indeed for any other sort of expansion). *however*, multiple vendors of third party Sun 3/50 memory expansion cards exist. They generally work by you removing a few chips, plugging the board into the chip holes, and plugging these chips back into the top of the board again. This gets access to the memory addressing and decoding on the motherboard. The expansion boards then tend to have 4 or 8 mb worth of 12mb SIMM sockets on them, so you can bring the 3/50 up to a system total of 8 or 12 mb. The performance enhancement for a 3/50 when you put >4 mb into it is *major* for practically any application. It makes a 3/50 run "a bit slower" than a 3/60, rather than "like a dog". A 3/60, for reference, has 24mb of standard SIMM sockets on the motherboard, as well as being a bit faster. So a 3/60 is a much nicer bet if you can get one. I am typing this message in on a second hand 3/50 with 8mb installed in it (although I'm actually using it in a rather opulent way - as an X-terminal running onto a SPARC server system :-) ) > 2. Can anyone give me any pointers to people who sell/support > second-hand suns in Australia? Help should be available in terms of repair and/or maint contracts from the companies who offer third-party maintenence services for sun equipment (in Australia, this means companies like Tech Precision and Miden). Also, don't overlook Sun themselves - although it might be a matter of the local Sun office's attitude to supporting things that they generally considering to be rather "superseded" :-) In terms of buying Sun's, I've got mine by responding to news postings and/or by generating "wanted to buy" sorts of news postings. One of the best places to rattle is the local University - oops, I see that you *are* the local university :-) cheers, Simon {------------------------------------------------} { Simon Hackett, Internode Systems Pty Ltd } { E-mail: simon@internode.com.au } { Phone: +61 8 373 1339 Fax: +61 8 373 4911 } { Mail: PO Box 69, Daw Park, SA 5041 AUSTRALIA } {------------------------------------------------} ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 Sep 92 10:36:19 +0100 From: Chris Clack Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V5 #33 To: Suns-at-Home@ecn.purdue.edu >1. Can the sun 3/50 be expanded to >4Mb of memory? I looked in the >sun-at-home archives, and there seemed some debate about this, but I >couldn't find whether it was resolved definitely one way or another. >If so, what form does it take -- from looking at the board, it only >fits 4M of chips, is there an expansion bus I didn't notice? Malcolm, A warning: I have just had no end of trouble trying to fit an Acropolis 12M memory upgrade to my Sun 3/50. Other people may have had no problems with Acropolis, but I have to say that I would never deal with them again. The original board they sent had a SIM socket default, so it had to go back for replacement. The replacement (when it finally arrived) had a defective SIMM, which I returned for replacement - I am still waiting for that replacement. Most of the problems I had with Acropolis were related to the fact that they are in the States an I am not, so there is an obvious tendency for them to take my money and then forget about me (because they reason it would cost me too much to complain). They don't ever make a transatlantic call and it takes them weeks to respond to a simple request - but then only if you call them once or twice a week to make a nuisance of yourself. You can never get them to return a call...they refuse to send or answer transatlantic faxes and it is extremely difficult to get them to reply to a letter. When their goods turned out to be faulty, they belly-ached about the postage cost of replacement and in the case of the faulty SIMM, they claimed that it wasn't faulty at all, despite receiving a full installation log from me which clearly shows that the SIMM was failing repeatedly. This latest development causes me some concern, since I now wonder about their technical competence. On the bright side, they did actually send a replacement board for the initial dead board. I can imagine that an even less scrupulous company might have totally ignored their responsibilities when dealing with an overseas customer. At present, the Acropolis board is installed in my 3/50 and is configured for an 8M upgrade. It runs perfectly. Unfortunately, I actually paid for a 12M upgrade and it looks as though I may never get what I paid for. --Chris. PS: the moral is deal with a local company, not with Acropolis! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Sep 92 18:10:44 EDT From: delphys@ocean.cc.mcgill.ca (David Holmes) Subject: V5 #33 & 3/50 Memory Upgrades To: Suns-at-Home@ecn.purdue.edu, malb@boojum.ee.uts.edu.au SUN 3/50s can certainly be upgraded but is requires a seperate board. As far as I know SUN is _not_ in this business themselves. The board we use is from Helios Systems which is a Piiceon Inc company. There is also a board from Clearpoint (sorry no address) but I wasn't too impressed with how it was set up; it struck me as a poorer design. The Helios board is very nice and allows upgrades to either 8 or 12MB. You change remove 4 PALs and move the PCHK and MMU chips up onto the new daughter board. The daughter board (with 8 SIMM sockets) has two socket plugs on the underside that then plug into the original PCHK and MMU sockets. As well there are plugs for the removed PALs. The final step is a very stiff plastic clip that clips the memory daughter board to the bracket on the back end of the 3/50 mother board. Anyhow we have had no trouble with our board which is the 12M version. The address I have may be out of date as we have had this board for a few years now: Helios Systems 1996 Lundy Avenue San Jose, CA 95131 Tel: 408-432-0292 FAX: 408-943-1309 Telex: 510-601-3937 ANS: PIICEON CA David ________ __________________________ __ David Holmes McGILL UNIVERSITY UNIX Support Group - Computing Centre Montreal, CANADA email/NeXT email delphys@CC.McGill.CA voice 514-398-3716 delphys@MCGILL1.BITNET FAX 514-398-6876 ----------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ End of Suns-at-Home Digest ******************************