Sun Sparc 5 Nostalgia

barl0w writes with what he calls "an awesome on-going story over at OS News about a Sun Sparc 5 coming alive again." Like the article's author points out, if you really want 64-bit computing, it's available cheaply on eBay.

You can purchase an Ultra 5...

[tcopeland]

...right here [mysuncomputer.com]. They also have Ultra 60s, 80s, etc.

Monitors on Sparc5

[multipartmixed]

Note: The article says "just about any" standard monitor with an HD15 will work -- not so. At least on the earlier Ultra 5s, you had to be somewhat choosy with your monitor.

From personal experience;

Doesn't work:
MAG DJ530
IBM G70

Does work:
Panasonic SL70i
Panasonic E70i
Panasonic S70
Sun monitors (duh)
Sony 15", 17" (can't remember model numbers).

Symptom: No display with incompatible monitor, regardless of m64 settings.

Lesson: Try the monitor with the box before you buy it.

Correction

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a SPARC 5, it's an Ultra 5. The former implies 32-bit, the latter 64. Not that anyone here knows or cares.

Re:You can purchase an Ultra 5...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you can get a better deal and do it eBay. [ebay.com]

Not Sparc 5...Ultra 5!

[Stonent1]

When you say "Sparc 5" most people assume you mean "SparcStation 5"

Re:I have some of these in my garage!

[multipartmixed]

Ultra 1s have the same motherboard as the Enterprise 150. IIRC, they are 170 MHz sun4u; SBUS, SCSI; hme on board, probably only one CPU slot.

Creator/Enterprise almost certainly indicates what video card shipped with it.

Sparc 5 isn't an Ultra 5

[the packrat]

For those people who aren't old enough to know there is a difference, the Sparc 5 was the baby brother of Sun's Sparc 20, and was a sun4m machine. The Ultra 5 discussed in the article was a much later beast, with a sun4u architecture, and crippled horribly with various PC-isms including IDE and sharp case edges.

As far as their being useless, I bought one just recently for one of my students to use as a workstation to work on visualising the results of the modelling work that will be done in the coming year. For next to no money you can pick up a decent workstation that runs Solaris, often with a fantastic monitor. Outdated, Ha!

A Sparc 5 is not an Ultra 5

[maynard]

The article is about an Ultra 5 being resurrected, not a traditional sparc 5. Just so we're clear, the sparc 5 was among the Sun 4m CPU class while the Ultra 5 was a Sun 4u class CPU. The Sparc 5 is a 32 bit arch while the Ultra 5 is 64 bit. The Sparc 5 uses SBUS expansion cards, MBUS CPU expansion bay, has onboard 10mbit ethernet, standard SCSI II support, and usually shipped with a CG6 8 bit color card (not always). The Ultra 5 has a built in Sun IIi CPU, 100Mbit ethernet, PCI bus support, and IDE instead of SCSI disks. It also has an onboard 8bit ATI graphics adapter.

If given the choice I would take the Sparc 5 simply for it's greater I/O bandwidth alone. Actually, give me an Ultra 1 or 2, or a Sparc 20. Frankly, the Ultra 5 was a hunk of junk even on release. I wouldn't pay a dime for one of those. JMO. --M

Err

[multipartmixed]

s/Sparc5/Ultra5

Geez, I'm dopy today. Oh, look, so is the slashdot editor.

Sparc5 - aka Sparcstation 5 - is a really old, really crappy sun4m that is suitable for use as an X terminal and not much else.

Re:I have some of these in my garage!

[larien]

Ultra 1s have one of 143, 167 or 200MHz CPUs. Older Ultra 1s (usually the 143MHz versions) have only le (10Mbit) ethernet and a 50 pin SCSI connecter. Newer versions have hme and 68 pin SCSI (not sure if the SCSI level is different). You can usually tell the version by the colour of the "1" on the front of the unit; if it's green, it's the older version with le/50pin SCSI, if it's red/orange, it's hme/68 pin. The latter usually comes with Creator graphics. There is also a 3rd version called "Ultra 1 Enterprise" which may not have a graphics board.

There isn't a CPU slot as such; the single CPU is hardwired to the motherboard.

Finally, the E150 is one of the worst bits of kit every shipped by Sun; the inside is mounted in foam blocks (!?!?!!) and if you shut it down (init 5) you can only switch it back on by either (a) opening the unit up or (b) attaching a Sun keyboard and using the 'power' button.

Re:You can purchase an Ultra 5...

[pyr0]

RTFA? The author says that the Ultra 5's are UDMA 33.

Re:A Sparc 5 is not an Ultra 5

[sirket]

Since when did the SS5 have an mbus slot? The SS10 and SS20 both used mbus modules. The SS5 had a built in processor.

-sirket

Re:Monitors on Sparc5

[OSSMKitty]

I seem to remember that Sun systems required monitors that could handle sync-on-green (much like NeXT workstations, and probably others). My multi-scan Dell monitor will work on a Sun, but my LCD won't.

That's "Ultra Sparc 5" not "Sparc 5"

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a big difference between a "Sparc 5" and an "Ultra Sparc 5". Sun made a 32-bit "Sparc 5" back in the late 80's/early 90's. The "Ultra Sparc 5" is much newer, runs the 64-bit processor (That's what Ultra means) and just went end-of-life a year or two ago.

Re:It would have to run Solaris

[OutlawDrake]

Unfortunately, you don't care enough to understand the situation. There's nothing to fix. 64-bit userland would only benefit a very very few apps (that needed more than 4GB of RAM), and would significantly slow down the rest of them. (I was actively subscribed to the debian-sparc mailing list for several years. Do some research, and talk to the sparc linux maintainers.)

I expect that this will come out in one of the promised followup articles on OSNews.

Righto, my mistake.

[maynard]

The SS5 had a built in processor.

Absolutely right; I knew that. I've got an SS5, SS10, and SS20 and simply made a mistake in my post. Whoops. --M

Re:It would have to run Solaris

[fdragon]

UltraSparc has a 64bit userland if you care to compile it. Currently the only distribution that I know of that provides one is the Aurora Linux distribution that is based off of RedHat 7.3. More information about the project is Here at the Aurora Linux website [auroralinux.org].

Currently its 64bit userland is limited to the C library and a few support libraries. This allows you to compile applications in 64bit mode so that they can gain the benifits of 64bit mode.

Most cases using 64bit applications cause the machine to be slower due to the doubling in the length of the addressing pointers and other factors. Better explination is available in their FAQ entry on this 64bit vs 32bit issue [soton.ac.uk].

Re:Not Sparc 5...Ultra 5!

[sql*kitten]

When you say "Sparc 5" most people assume you mean "SparcStation 5"

To the average OSNews reader (and indeed to Eugenia herself) a late-90s Ultra 5 is an ancient computer. Such people would have absolutely no use for a SPARCStation, since (if you read any of her OS reviews) the only thing they're interested in is eye candy.

Me, I have a old NeXT Color Turbo, that's a 33 Mhz 68040, 32M RAM box running a BSD derivative, that is still as useful a machine as it ever was - the real business of programming, editing text files, hasn't changed much in 30-odd years. Only the kids who judge a box by what window manager or web browser it's running think any different.

The thing these kids don't understand is that back in the day, kit was built to last. Old SPARCStation 5's are dead reliable, and if you want a DNS, mail, a web server, a CVS server, whatever, they're perfect for the task. And you can get a lot done with a box like a 10 or a 20, they'll happily support 20 users running terminals, editors, compilers, etc etc. Only thing that's slow is their frame buffers. Buy a modern PC and it's useless in 3 years, it was never made to last.

Not particularly well informed in some areas

[elmegil]

FTA: Unfortunately, you're stuck with Sun keyboards and mice, as the connector is Sun-specific, as well as certain specialty keys. There may be adapters, but I don't know how well they'll work with the specialized keys.

Not true. I've been using a Logitech TrackMan Pro for several years now, with the aid of a nifty box that converts PS/2 devices (has an input for a keyboard and for a mouse) into the Sun connector. It was a Sun part number, somewhat obscure, but definitely available and useful. It's called the "Sun Interface Converter" and the Sun part number is 595-3692 [sun.com]. I'd recommend you go looking for one [ebay.com] if you are having trouble coming up with Sun Keyboards & Mice or if you want to use your Sun system with a standard KVM switch (which is what I do at home).

Re:I've got an Ultra 5 and a Sparc Station 5!

[Anonymous Coward]

Both are valid names ... http://www.octanecreative.com/ducttape/duckvsduct. html [octanecreative.com].

"coming alive again"???

[jdreed1024]

First of all, it's an Ultra 5, not a Sparc 5. And they're not _that_ old. It's an UltraSparc processor running anywhere from 266 to 400 MHz. I really don't think it's that impressive to find something to do with it. Now if it was a SparcStation 5 (ca 1995), which was a 32-bit, 85MHz machine, I'd be a little more impressed. But not that much, since I know several people running NetBSD on their Sparc 5s and using them as routers for their home networks.

Next week: Slashdot impressed when someone figures out how to use an ancient PIII/700. Yeesh.

Re:Monitors on Sparc5

[Octorian]

Another very important thing to note. "13W3" isn't really a very standardized form of plug (beyond the "3" mini-coax connectors). I've seen 13W3 used in workstations by Sun, SGI, and IBM, and the pin-outs of the 13 normal pins are all just a tad different. Keep this in mind when you need to buy an adaptor for a system.

Alive again? I've been running one since '94...

[Anonymous Coward]

My home system has been running on a 70Mhz/170Mhz SS5 since '94. I have IPX's that have been in continuous service since '94/'95 as well.

Why are PC people so amazed at systems that regularly run and have a useful life of 10+ years?

The SS5 will remain a home server till I can't get replacement SCSI drives for it.

The oldest Sun I've seen working was about 15 years old and only stopped because the hard drives for it were no longer made...

Just because PC's crap out after a few years doesn't mean all computers are that way!

Re:I've got an Ultra 5 and a Sparc Station 5!

[The Blue Meanie]

I hear this complaint occassionally, and I usually try to ask - have you actually tried using the app in question under Solaris 8 and had it not function somehow? Sun has always been hard-core about making sure that apps for earlier versions of Solaris continue to work on the later versions. So much so in fact, that they guarantee compatibility in writing, as long as you follow their ABI guidelines. Any app that runs on 7 that won't run on 8 is rather badly written from the get-go.

As for the other questions, the CPUs pop up on eBay from time to time - try to get a 360/2 or a 440/2, they have a faster FSB. And the mozilla library dependencies ARE quite the nightmare. If you can move to Solaris 8, the dependencies at least go from being a nightmare to just a bad dream. :)

Re:I have some of these in my garage!

[MROD]

Actually, the two types of Ultra 1 were:-

Ultra 1 - SBus graphics, le 10Mb/s ethernet and 8bit SCSI. (As the PROM didn't say UPA bus at POST I'm not even sure if it had the full memory switch architecture.)

Ultra 1e - UPA bus Creator graphics, HappyMeal 100Mb/s ethernet and wide SCSI. During POST this machine stated UPA bus.

The 1e was only available in 170MHz versions whereas the 1 was originally available as a 150MHz version and then later 170MHz.