Date: Mon, 13 Jun 94 14:41:51 EST From: Dwight McKay (The Moderator) Reply-To: Suns-at-Home@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V7 #21 To: Suns-at-Home-List Suns-at-Home Digest Mon, 13 Jun 94 Volume 7 : Issue 21 Today's Topics: Equipment recommendations? HW Hiccoughs Installing a CD-ROM Mouse port died on 3/60 PPP for Sun?? Replacement batteries/NVRAM for Sparcs Setting up a headless SUN Suns-at-Home Digest V7 #20 +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Submissions: suns-at-home \ @harbor.ecn.purdue.edu | | Requests: suns-at-home-request > -- or -- | | Archives: suns-at-home-archives / ...rutgers!pur-ee!... | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 8:24:50 -0400 (EDT) From: "Pat Thomas, VAX enthusiast" Subject: Equipment recommendations? To: suns-at-home@ecn.purdue.edu Hi all, After subscribing to the list about a year ago, I finally have a relevant question! :-) I've been "accumulating" hardware for a while now, and I've gotten pretty good deals on HP equipment (I currently have an Apollo DN4500 and an HP 9000/400t). A year or so ago, it was my intention to try to get a Sun when I "outgrew" my Apollo. I'm still a few months away from outgrowing it, but I was wondering if any of you folks would have an idea of what sort of Sun I should look for. Originally, I was interested in a SS1 or 1+, and maybe that's still the way to go. What I'd *like* to do is to trade in my HP9000/400 and maybe even my DN4500 on a pretty-nice Sun. I guess my question is twofold: first, what would you recommend I should look for? I assume I could get about $2500 from those two machines (??). Second: does anybody know of a "used equipment broker" that might accept HP trades on Sun equipment? Any advice is appreciated. BTW, I found a 3/260 a week or so ago that I decided to take under my wing (the price was right ;-), but it doesn't have a CPU. Anybody have any good deals on such an item that they'd care to pass along? Thanks, -- Patrick ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Jun 1994 14:48:06 -0400 From: Steve Turner Subject: HW Hiccoughs To: Suns-at-Home@ecn.purdue.edu I have an SS2 that has developed a couple of minor problems. I am concerned, in part, with trying to keep them from getting worse; but of course I'd also like to effect a cure, if possible. First, ttya has stopped communicating. I can raise and lower DTR, and detect DSR and CD. But no signals on BA (SD) seem to be generated. All this from watching the lights on my MultiTech. I have tried everything I can think of, from altering the baud rate to power cycling the entire system. It was working fine, I dropped DTR to hangup the line (which seemed to be stuck due to network lag, nothing more evil) and when I tried to reconnect - no answer. I'm using the modem on ttyb with no problems, but I've had no luck with reviving ttya. Any clues? Now, my monitor (a Sony GDM-1501, 15" Trinitron) has started to develop a flicker. It looks like it could be a problem with the flyback. From 1/10th to 1/2 of the screen jumps 2-3" to the right for an instant, intermittently. I'd really appreciate any suggestions of how to better diagnose (or better yet - fix) these problems. I haven't got access to much more than a soldering iron and a DMM, but it would be nice to know what I'm dealing with, even if I can't fix it myself. swt ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Jun 94 10:51:53 +0100 From: Iain A F Fleming (Elementary Penguin) Subject: Installing a CD-ROM To: Suns-at-Home@ecn.purdue.edu Another in a long line of questions about CD-ROM drives. I have just acquired a Hitachi CD-ROM drive (model CDR-1750S). Has anyone used this drive with a Sun? (I have a 3/80, but I believe it acts like an SS1 in this instance). On the back of the drive there is a DIP bank of six switches: 1 -\ 2 > SCSI ID, set to 6 for SUN 3 -/ 4 - Parity Select 5 - Enable Termination 6 - Block Size (512/2048) I presume I want 512Kb blocks, but what about parity? Do I have to anything in software, apart from ensuring that the sr0 driver is in the kernel? All and any advice welcomed. -- Iain A F Fleming Compiler Development Group NAG Ltd Oxford UK iainf@nag.co.uk tel: +44.865.511245 x255 fax: +44.865.311205 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 May 94 21:44:44 PDT From: perryh@pluto.rain.com (Perry Hutchison) Subject: Mouse port died on 3/60 To: mcr@Sandelman.OCUnix.on.ca mcr@Sandelman.OCUnix.on.ca wrote: > Finally, after much fideling, I got my eeprom convinced to > use ttya as my console, and disconnected my keyboard. (If it found > the keyboard/mouse, it tries to init them). My system is booted > now, but my console (thus X) is useless. Plugging the keyboard > in after does nothing ... ACKK! This is rumored to fry keyboards. > [aside: at first, I was able to boot via diag-switch and a 9600 > baud terminal hooked to ttya. Now, when I go to the diag boot, > it performs the PROM test, segment, something, and ROM selftest, and > then loops!] Mine does this if I have a modem hooked up to ttyb while trying to do a diag boot. I think it will happen if either tty echoes the diag output back to the input. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 22:37:37 -0700 From: "David Di Gioia" Subject: PPP for Sun?? To: suns-at-home@ecn.purdue.edu, mage@ttest.dfci.harvard.edu I have been using MorningStar Technologies PPP on my Sparc 1 w/SunOS 4.1.3_U1 for about 6 weeks now. It is very good, and very well documented and supported. They support most Unixes, and many modems (but especially Telebit and US Robotics). I am using a USR Sportster 14400 V.32bis. It is $795, but they probably have educational discounts. I tried dp-2.3 for about 2 weeks, but could not make it work. There are also other free ppp's, like ppp-2.0.X. BTW, I am a systems engineer for ANDATACO; we also sell MorningStar products. You are also welcome to email or call me if you have any questions about my experience with it. You can get an eval from MorningStar by emailing the output of "uname -a" to: support@morningstar.com Other addresses: MorningStar Technologies: 800-558-7827, 614-451-1883 marketing@morningstar.com (sales) ftp.morningstar.com (anonymous ftp) http://www.MorningStar.Com (World-Wide Web/Mosaic) ANDATACO: 800-334-9191, inquire@andataco.com (sales) 800-443-9191, cs@andataco.com, daved@andataco.com (tech support, and me) ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jun 1994 15:15:05 UTC From: nsayer@quack.kfu.com (Nick Sayer) Subject: Replacement batteries/NVRAM for Sparcs To: (null) Dwight McKay (The Moderator) writes: >I got a replacement battery/NVRAM chip/clock for a Sparc 1 from Contour >Computer Services, Inc. 606 Valley Way, Milpitas, CA 95035, >408-946-9574. I had to give them my original hostid#. I think it cost >me $45 plus tax and shipping. I believe you can get the NVRAM/clock chips from Halted in Sunnyvale for quite a bit less. There is a (very unsupported) procedure you can do to program your own NVRAM chip in place on a Sparcstation. It was recently posted to one of the comp.sys.sun groups. Alas, I did not save a copy of it, but I'm sure someone else did. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jun 94 08:49:12 EST5EDT From: janick@analysys.resudox.net Subject: Setting up a headless SUN To: suns-at-home@ecn.purdue.edu Hello, this is my first post to this mailing list so I apologize in advance if this is a FAQ. I just received a headless Sparc 2. I do not have a monitor nor a keyboard or mouse (it is a host CPU for a large simulation co-processor). My experience as a UNIX admin is limited to administering 5 DECstations connected via ethernet. I find SUN's documentation seriously lacking compared to DEC's (which was not even complete!). Here is the set-up I'd like to have: Use my old monochrome 286 as a console, connected on ttya. Use my 486 as an X-terminal, connected via ethernet. I'm working on part 1. I connected my PC via COM1 through an RS-232 cable and a NULL-modem to RS-232-A on the SUN. At power-up, I get the following messages (newlines as shown): WARNING: Can't determine keyboard typeCan't open input device Can't open input device And nothing more happens (There is a ~20 sec delay between the first and second message [the ones where there is a missing newline]). My theory: ttya is not set-up with a 'getlogin' in the /etc/ttys. My question: Can I get the full console output when the machine boots up (as if it were the regular screen) ? More questions: - The persons who've given me the machine do not know the root passwd. Can I boot in single-user mode from the dumb terminal ? - How do I do the equivalent of L1-A to shutdown the machine if I don't have a keyboard ? - Has anyone done part #2 ? If yes, what is your set-up (SW/HW) ? Any more help/pointers would be appreciated. I'm not (currently) subscribed to this mailing list. Please send any answer back to my email address "janick@analysys.resudox.net". Thank you in advance. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 May 94 13:52:12 -0500 From: jdt@concorde.com (birmingham) Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V7 #20 To: Suns-at-Home@ecn.purdue.edu I would highly reccomend the "ppp-2.0" that you can FTP from morningstar.com; I use it for my SS-1 at home, PPP'd into a Telebit Netblazer. Works real nice! /joe ------------------------------ End of Suns-at-Home Digest ******************************