Sun Sparc 5 Nostalgia 363
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.
Again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Correction (Score:4, Insightful)
-sirket
I've got an Ultra 5 and a Sparc Station 5! (Score:4, Insightful)
My SparcStation 5 (with a mighty 110Mhz microSparc) holds my CVS repository and my MP3s (via NFS and Samba). In order to save money the larger of its two drives (a 36Gb IBM) is a 50pin one that I've duck taped in to the CD bay. Some what dodgy, but I haven't had any problems with it in three years of use. This one runs and old version of Debian (2.2.20) but is safely hidden behind my firewall.
Whilst I could obviously get more powerful machines they do the job, are rock solid (both in hardware and software terms), and cost a total of 140GBP for the two of them. Plus they look a damn site nicer than boring old wintel box.
Memories (Score:3, Insightful)
They were exciting and new back in 1999 when I started. The computer lab had a row of Ultra 5's, a few Ultra 1's, some SparcStation 4,5,10, & 20's and even a few SparcClassics (!). There were also some Solaris/Intel machines. The U-5's were definitely the machines you wanted.
Eventually the U-5's replaced all the older machines before being phased out themselves by the SunBlades. All in all, they were not bad machines, but the video seriously left something to be desired. And the 128MB of RAM in the older machines just didn't cut it by the end. Considering what a comparable Wintel Box would have cost at the time and how long they would have lasted, the U-5's were not a bad deal. There are probably many still around the department and in the labs today.
Re:Businessmodel? (Score:2, Insightful)
64 bit a marketing tool? (Score:5, Insightful)
Back then, 64-bits was more of a marketing tool, and in many respects, still is.
64 bit gave higher precision for use on CAD workstations. Anyone who every used a Sun workstation for it's intended purpose would know this.
-sirket
Erm, so? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Ultra 5 is a 'modern' UltraSPARC-based system. Solaris still supports the platform; indeed even Solaris 10 will still support the U5 (and the Ultra 2, but not the Ultra 1. The UltraSPARCs used in the Ultra 1 had a comedy bug anyway, which meant that they shouldn't be used in 64 bit mode). Now, if they'd been talking about the SPARCstation 5, I would have been interested.
The SS5 had a HyperSPARC processor, just like the SPARCStation 2 over in the corner of this room (in a 'rack' consisting of a pair of Ultra 1s, the SS2 and some spacers made of plastic). This was a good old-fashioned rock-steady 32bit Sun machine, just like they used to make before they went all cheap (that's the build price, not the retail price!). The principle difference as far as I'm concerned between the SS5 and the SS2, and the reason I'd be interested to hear about the longevity of the SS5, is that the 5 can run NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP for SPARC platform whereas the 2 cannot.
An Ultra 5, on the other hand, is just Yet Another 64-bit Solaris Box like the two Ultra 1s behind me or the 4-way Enterprise server across the way.
Boring, not /. worthy article (Score:5, Insightful)
1. stuff from 1990 or earlier
2. square peg in a round hole
2.1. ethernet in a c64
2.2. web server on a TRS80
2.3. porting modern software to old obscure platforms
3. Univac 1
Alive again? WTF, it never died! (Score:4, Insightful)
The only disadvantage of the Ultra5/10 is the slow IDE bus, but you can put a scsi controller in it.
The board (depending on the version) can take up to 1GB ram and a 440MHz Ultrasparc IIi w/ 2 MB CPU cache. So this is a really nice box and fast enough for most work.
Re:Not Sparc 5...Ultra 5! (Score:4, Insightful)
Those old Sparc5's (or any other cool, old boxes)were cool and all, and I don't mean to be argumentative, but let's be realistic. If you want to run a small to midsized DNS, mail, web, or CVS server, a Sparc5 can handle it very well. Furthermore, the hardware in those boxes is built to a higher standard than most commodity PC hardware....and there will always be significant numbers of geeks out there running small-time Linux servers on old hardware, from commodity PC hardware to old servers. Sure a modern PC is useless for PC-ish stuff within three years (ie running the latest bleeding-edge desktop OS, etc), however, for those same tasks, outdated hardware can be just as well suited to the task.
My point is that anyone who "gets it" (in this sense), will just get it -- those who don't never will. They use their computers for completely different reasons than you and have completely different requirements than you and I. Much of the obselescence of the desktop PC within three years comes from software abstraction keeping pace with faster hardware. Servers don't necessarily have the same fate. It's hard to make a comparison in that sense...especially for people like you who probably know their shit well enough to consider the aforementioned abstraction more of a hinderance than a help. In the mean time, enjoy the pace at which hardware gets faster and cheaper :)
Ode To The Esoteric Computers (Score:2, Insightful)
Purple Desksides and giant blue towers
The BeBox, Next Cube,
Many colors only some beige
Each would be quite different
Inside and out
From companies that made hardware and software
Now we have only a different case
The guts are the same
Jeez (Score:1, Insightful)
It replaced a SparcStation 20 which was perfectly fine too, just not 64bit.
I you want nostalgia, let me break out my NeXT cube...
Re:Boring, not /. worthy article (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's not Sparc 5, it's Ultra 5! (Score:2, Insightful)
You're retarded.
Well maintained and engineered stuff lasts longer. Works for Sun, Mac, SGI, IBM etc. Put your "Taiwan-made MoBo and CPU" against it for years and see what lasts longer on average.
Now that I have your attention, Mr. Expert, please post non-AC with your real-life stories and I'll counter them.