Date: Sat, 7 Sep 96 14:28:15 EST From: Dwight McKay (The Moderator) Reply-To: Suns-at-Home@net-kitchen.com Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V9 #33 To: Suns-at-Home-List Suns-at-Home Digest Sat, 7 Sep 96 Volume 9 : Issue 33 Today's Topics: Building a shoebox (4 msgs) Sun 3/60 Dead Monitor Suns-at-Home Digest V9 #32 +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | 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: Sat, 31 Aug 1996 16:14:04 -0400 From: Bill Kearney Subject: Building a shoebox To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com > I inhererted (saved) a couple of Sun3/50's from work. I've decided to > bring up either NetBSD or SunOS on the machine. Problem is I need to > build a shoebox. > > 1. what types of SCSI hard drives will work? What won't work? > I'd like around 1 gig. > > 2. will a Jaz drive work? (crazy idea?) > > 3. are there any 3/50 owners left? > > 4. what is the better OS to run SunOS or NetBSD? > > 5. is there any magic needed to build a shoebox? I have an Archive 2150 > tape drive. > > These machines have 8 megs of memory. Almost any normal SCSI drive will work. I've used almost every kind of drive. Considering how cheap 1gb drives are it would be worth getting a new one. I suppose a Jaz could be made to work but I'm not sure how the removability works. You certainly can't boot from it and expect it to be removable. The 3/50 has a bunch of limitations the biggest being the limited amount of RAM you can add to it. That and it required some funky RAM boards to do it. Which OS? Take your pick. As for making a shoebox the only real trick is using the 'right' SCSI IDs for the devices. As I recall, the tape should be ID 4 and your boot drive ID zero. Be sure to terminate it properly and use decent cabling. The older machines weren't as tolerant of SCSI bus issues as the machines today. I had a devil of a time getting my 3/60 to work properly until I replaced the cabling with Sun branded ones. This solved the errant IO errors I was seeing. Go figure. The popular opinion is that these machines make great X terminals off a more powerful host. That and they're good for just poking around with unix. These days you can buy a Pentium clone for less that $1000 and run linux (or NetBSD, or whatever) and get real horsepower. But you can't beat the price of a free machine! Bill - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 02 Sep 1996 12:01:45 +0100 (MET) From: "John O'Connor" Subject: Building a shoebox To: Suns-at-Home Brian Palmer asked: > 4. what is the better OS to run SunOS or NetBSD? If you use SunOS get 4.1.1 and if you can the patch to bring it to 4.1.1_U1. This has openwindows so it has a look and feel similar to a modern Sun. > 5. is there any magic needed to build a shoebox? A shoebox can be as simple as a spare PC PSU on the floor with some SCSI drives plugged in. Actually, you may find that an old PC case and PSU makes a cheap box to put the drives in. John - ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1996 14:59:58 -0700 (PDT) From: Curt Sampson Subject: Building a shoebox To: Brian Palmer > 1. what types of SCSI hard drives will work? What won't work? > I'd like around 1 gig. Pretty much any SCSI hard drive should work. I was using a Quantum Lightning for a while. > 3. are there any 3/50 owners left? Yes. I use two B/W 3/50s at the office as Xterms, two headless 3/60s at the office as sandbox machines, and a colour 3/60 at home as my router and, until recently, my main home system. > 4. what is the better OS to run SunOS or NetBSD? Well, SunOS is probably still faster, but NetBSD has far more nifty features, and is a lot more secure. > 5. is there any magic needed to build a shoebox? I have an Archive 2150 > tape drive. Nope. Just put your stuff in a box and plug in a cable. Make sure only the last unit on the chain is terminated. The hardest part is probably finding a cable with Sun 50-pin D connector. > These machines have 8 megs of memory. Good. NetBSD with 4MB is pretty bad when you actually start doing work on it. 8MB is livable if you're not running X. cjs - ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Sep 1996 08:36:18 +1000 (EST) From: Craig Dewick Subject: Building a shoebox To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com > 1. what types of SCSI hard drives will work? What won't work? > I'd like around 1 gig. That will be fine. I like the Quantum Fireball 1.08 GB SCSI drives, which aren't made any more, but I've bought a few here in Australia just by watching the local forsale newsgroups. > 2. will a Jaz drive work? (crazy idea?) I have never had one to try, but I'm of the opinion that it would. > 3. are there any 3/50 owners left? I still have one! 8-) I started out in Sun's with a 3/60 actually. > 4. what is the better OS to run SunOS or NetBSD? SunOS is more complete, but NetBSD is continually evolving and so isn't left behind in the development stakes. SunOS 4.1.1u1, the last version of SunOS to support Sun-3's, was released in 1990, so it's getting quite dated now. > 5. is there any magic needed to build a shoebox? I have an Archive 2150 > tape drive. As an alternative solution, consider buying a PC mini-tower case and installing all your storage devices in it. I've built two of these - my original mini-tower which now sits attached to this machine (my 4/380 server), and another newer one which has an SLC board mounted internally so it's a complete Sun machine in a mini-tower case. Mini-towers are cheap, they have a power supply, and lots of room inside. The only things you'll need to work out is how to arrange suitable cabling for the SCSI bus and how you'll mount connectors, etc.. Regards, Craig. - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Sep 96 17:36:27 GMT From: Richard M Davis Subject: Sun 3/60 Dead Monitor To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com Hi There, I was wondering if it's possible to connect a PC Monitor to a Sun 3/60 as my 21inch B/W monitor has died. Apparently the Power Supply is dead and the Timing Board is dead. Also can anyone give me some FTP sights for software for SunOs 4.1. I'm perticually after a compiled tar of Emacs. Thanks -- Regards, Richard - ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1996 07:35:22 -0700 From: Floyd Rodgers Subject: Suns-at-Home Digest V9 #32 To: Suns-at-Home@tigger.net-kitchen.com For 386i stuff try: ftp.city.ac.uk usc.edu /archive/usenet/systems/sun sahsun.acs.usm.maine.edu /pub/sun386i sun386i.mono.org /pub/sun386i PLEASE send replies to: frodgers@netcom.com (personal) KC5QBC frodgers@rotarydrill.com (Business)(214)495-8181 A practicing artist of multiple ended candle burning. - ------------------------------ End of Suns-at-Home Digest ******************************