Sun lunchbox wanted. Swap or sell much of what I have

[guzzis3]

Hi all,

I've decided I want a sun IPX/IPC/sparc classic.

I'm prepared to swap or sell most anything in my collection to get one.

I'm located in Brisbane Australia.

Also if there is interest I have a box of old cards for early IBM XT/AT machines and some old HD's and floppy drives and software on 5 1/4" disks and such.

Post followups if your interested and I'll try and get pics/details of the cards and parts up. These are cost of shipping only but if you want to pay for them that's ok with me Mostly want to help out.

Some of the machines I'm prepared to swap/sell for a Sun lunchbox are:

Sun 3/50
Osbourne 1 with manual
TRS80 coco in box (not new)
Apple power PC 7500/100
Mac 2 LC

Hard Disk IBM 27H1698 IBM 4. 5 GB UltraStar SSA Hard Drive EC488651 / PN27H1698 / DCHS-04C X 2

Other stuff ... lots...

Most of these systems haven't been booted by me or it was so long ago I couldn't garantee anything, howeaver if there is interest I'll check them over where possible and report.

Anyway let me know...

 

[NathanAllan]

I sure wish you were closer. I just can't swing shipping from Australia.

Nathan

 

[Vlad]

Good luck, I've been looking for ANY Sun machnine for about 2 years now. (Dang the new ones cost more than my car did!)

-V

 

[guzzis3]

Where are you ?

There is a steady stream of sun stuff on ebay and there are second hand dealers around the globe.

What specifically do you want ? Or do you want the machine for free ?

That could be a problem..

I mostly want nothing but shipping costs for my stuff. A few items are probably worth money but most is giveaway/swap stuff.

 

[mryon]

ooops

ooops

I hate to rub it in but yeah, Sparc stuff is relativly easy to come by.

In the past few years I've given away an IPX, IPC, Ultra 1 and a
Tadpole Sparc laptop.

An IPX really shouldn't cost you more than $50 plus whatever the 13w3 to
VGA adaptor costs these days.

 

[Vlad]

I have stated in this forum numorous times that I HATE EBAY. I will have nothing to do with that comapny. An I would love to have anything SPARC but cannot find anything. EBAY IS NOT AN OPTION. I almost sued them. Twice.

I hate to rub it in

Then don't.

I'm starting to get sick of this place........

 

[carlsson]

And unless you're into learning machine code for odd architectures, I doubt the usability value of an old low-end SPARC, but that is personal experience talking. Collectable maybe, but I don't have sentimental feelings that would make them fun to play with for long.

 

[mryon]

tense much?

tense much?

You're a bit uptight aren't you?

I have stated in this forum numorous times that I HATE EBAY. I will have nothing to do with that comapny. An I would love to have anything SPARC but cannot find anything. EBAY IS NOT AN OPTION. I almost sued them. Twice.


Then don't.

I'm starting to get sick of this place........

 

[guzzis3]

Well I understand why you don't like ebay. I've had a few problems with them over the years.

I guess you just have to proceed on teh understanding that your on your own. They won't help resolve a dispute and sometime they cause them.

Given you won't deal on ebay your next option is the resellers. Somewhat dearer but still plenty of older/low spec machines available.

In defence of old sun's the IPX/IPC/LC series are quite powerful enough to run a web server. I was a unix sys admin for some years (I'm really a mechanical engineer) and I specialised in sun/security/internet stuff.

I don't understand your comment about obscure machine code. sparc's run bsd, solaris/sunos or linux. You can probably port other os's to them if that's not enough. Any of those will allow you to run a variety of software, in fact if your patient you could run an IPX or LC as a light desktop box.

Also I have no intention of putting a head on it. They boot nicely headless listening on the serial port for input. Once the machine is setup you can ssh to it and do all admin form your desktop. I admined machines for years that I literally saw in the flesh (plastic?) maybe once or twice in all that time. They are VERY reliable. You mustn't look at hardware specs and judge them against PC's. A sparc running linux compared to a PC running linux with the same CPU speed etc will be MUCH faster.

I note there is no interest so far in what I have to sell/give away. I think making enough space to justify buying a new machine will be harder than finding a lunch box

 

[ahm]

OpenBSD runs well on older Sun boxen.

 

[carlsson]

Yeah, NetBSD and OpenBSD are excellent alternatives to Solaris 2+ if you a bit low on RAM. I remember a guy who swapped his Pentium 133 for a Sun ELC and claimed the latter was more responsible. I suppose it depends a little how you use it. These low-end SPARCs will run headless as small server applications, but to me they don't add anything another type of computer couldn't do; more a workstation than nostalgia which was why I made the comment about machine code - learning SPARC assembly is one of the few areas where a Sun would be superior to any low-end PC, Mac, IBM, HP, Digital, SGI and so on. But everyone have their own priorities.

 

[guzzis3]

There is all sorts of OS's you can run on them. The reason I think a lunchbox is a handy thing is:

They are physically small

They have enough reasources to run a low demand web server

They are extremely reliable

When the machine boots if it doesn't see a keyboard it'll output to and listen on the serial port automatically.

So I can set one up on the corner of my desk, plug ethernet straight into my router, run a serial cable to my PC, run terraterm or similar or boot to linux, setup the machine with a network install from my pc, lock down the security and leave it to chug away. I can't recall 100% but I think they come up automatically after a power outage also, although some services may not restart.

Like I say I've got the apple 7500/100, but it's big (physically) and not as elegant a solution. Mind it is a sweet desktop machine...Even the mac LC11 would be barely adequate except it lacks an ethernet port...

Anyway...as I said no interest in what I've got so...