• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here
  • From now on we will require that a prefix is set for any items in the sales area. We have created regions and locations for this. We also require that you select a delivery option before posting your listing. This will hopefully help us streamline the things that get listed for sales here and help local people better advertise their items, especially for local only sales. New sales rules are also coming, so stay tuned.

FS: Sun SPARCclassic lunchbox workstation

T

tipo158

Experienced Member
Joined
Mar 19, 2009
Messages
88
Location
Bainbridge Is., WA
Thinning the herd since I have seven Sun lunchbox systems at the moment.

For sale:
Sun SPARCclassic (4/15)
48MB memory
540MB Quantum HDD
cgsix framebuffer in addition to the built-in cgthree framebuffer

When I got this, it wasn't running. The IDPROM was bad, so I replaced it. Whoever installed its memory didn't know how Classic/LX memory should be installed, so I put in matched memory in the correct slots. The Sun424 HDD in it was failing, so I replaced it with another drive. The built-in cgthree framebuffer works, but I had a spare cgsix (Sun GX) framebuffer, so I put that in as well. I installed SunOS 4.1.4 and ran it and OpenWindows and almost everything works fine.

The only issue is networking. The TP ethernet port does not work. The AUI ethernet does work, but it requires a dongle not included with the sale. SBus ethernet cards are readily available for sale elsewhere.

Visually, it is pretty clean, but not perfect. Photos are posted below.

Sale is for the system unit only, no display, keyboard, or mouse. If you want a power cord, I can throw one in.

Price is $150 plus shipping. It is located in the Seattle area and I can deliver within the Puget Sound area. Also, I will be showing my other Sun lunchbox systems at the VCF Pacific Northwest next month and I can meet with you and deliver there.
 
Last edited:
Photos -
Outside:
IMG_0316.jpgIMG_0318.jpgIMG_0320.jpg

Inside:
IMG_0322.jpgIMG_0323.jpg

OBP banner and show-devs output:
IMG_0338.jpg

Self-test output:
IMG_0335.jpgIMG_0336.jpg

Booting Solaris 4.1.4:
IMG_0340.jpgIMG_0341.jpg
 
Last edited:
Since it does not come with keyboard, mouse or display, if you are unfamiliar with these systems, you may wonder what additional pieces one would need to access the system.

Option 1. Run it headless. It has a serial console that is accessed through a DB 25 RS-232 serial port. I connect this to a USB-to-RS232 adapter and use a serial terminal application on my Mac.

Option 2. Sun Type 5 or earlier keyboard and Sun mouse for input. There are easy to find on eBay. For a display an old VGA display and a 13W3-to-VGA adapter.
 
I miss SunOS/Solaris.. Last time I ran it was on a thinkpad. Forget the model. Pretty neat looking unit
Goodjob
 
My first stint at Sun, working on Solaris development, started around the time they stopped selling the lunchbox systems. I had a Classic to play around with then. I would take it to Usenix and sit at the back of the sessions and, using a Mac laptop as the serial terminal for the console, work on stuff.

I left Sun in '97, came back in '03, and made it through the Oracle acquisition in '10 and the big RIF last fall.

As I mentioned above, I am doing an exhibit of lunchbox systems at VCF Pacific Northwest in a month. I will be displaying one of each system (each running a different OS), one system open to show how they are laid out inside, and a RDI Britelite IPX, a SPARC "laptop" built around a SPARCstation IPX system board.
 
VERAULT said:
I miss SunOS/Solaris.. Last time I ran it was on a thinkpad.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Once in another life, I wrote the device drivers for the display and PCMCIA controller for the Thinkpad. I miss working there.

Hopefully tipo (and the Mods) don't mind me posting my little stack of lunchboxes.

IMG_20180112_002830991.jpg

Good luck with your sale.
 
I bought this SPARCclassic from tipo158. It's very clean inside and out I finally got together everything to boot it up: a Sun 13W3 to VGA adapter, Sun type 5 keyboard and mouse, an AUI cable, and an TP Ethernet AUI adapter. It boots up and works great. tipo158 loaded it with SunOS 4.1.4 which is something I haven't touched in about 20 years. It was pretty easy to re-figure out how to configure networking and launch both sunview and openwindows. Both work just fine. Networking works pretty well, though I'd forgotten that out-of-the-box SunOS 4 doesn't do DNS resolution the same as newer OSs do. With a little poking around I remembered how to start yellowpages and configure yp to do DNS resolution. Next I next to figure out how to get nslookup to work properly with DNS. I remember doing that a couple of times in the past, but I'm going to have to do some research how to patch DNS resolution into the regular libraries and rebuild nslookup.

Thanks tipo158 for restoring and passing on this wonderful piece of history to me!
 
Yeah, Sun was pushing NIS at the time...I guess breaking DNS in the default install is one strategy :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top