Sun and other collection

[SSN638]

I'm new here. I have a number of old Sun Microsoft servers that I restored back to life. The latest is a Sun SPARCserver 670MP that I restored from two machines. It has three 5 1/4 inch hard drives that sound like a turbine engine when they spool up. The UNIX OS version is SunOS rel5.5.1 (Solaris 2.5.1). My favorite is my Sun Ultra Enterprise 450 SPARC server - has 20 hard drives of 36G each. Runs UNIX Solaris 10 as well as Windows running inside UNIX on a SunPCi3 card. This 300 lb beast that keeps my office warm in the winter. Other Sun machines are Sunfire V440, SPARC T-5 server, SPARCclassic lunchbox computer, and Sunfire X2100. I found two IBM (Power 720 & P615) servers and quickly found out why they were inexpensive - you have to buy the OS from IBM. They make good sea anchors! The WANG Professional Computer has got to be the heaviest PC built with the largest PCBs. Other PCs I've collected are ones I purchased new like the IBM PC and Compq 850. Still others I found are Commodore 64, TRS80 model 1, Morrow PC, Franklin PC, lots of Apples, Kim-1, SYM-1 and Rockwell-65. But the latest one that fascinates me is the Altos 8000 CP/M machine with a real nice TeleVideo 910 CRT. I want program in Z80 Assembly Language, but it has become more of a challenge than I thought. I put a thread about this in the CP/M & MP/M topic. --- Thanks!

 

[ajacocks]

That’s a very nice collection, @SSN638. Did you indeed serve on USS Whale?

I’ve got a fairly decent Sun collection here, too, with machines from the 3/80 to the Ultra 45, and a lot in between. I also was a Sun sysadmin for a long time.

On the Power 6 and Power 7, you can run RHEL fairly easily, with some effort, you can run Gentoo. RHEL can be gotten for free with a free developer subscription:

Download Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) | Red Hat Developer

Download Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) at no cost. Get access to RHEL cloud ready images, ISOs, and more

developers.redhat.com

Welcome to the forum!
- Alex

 

[seaken]

Welcome to the Forum! I love seeing that Altos!

Seaken

 

[SSN638]

That’s a very nice collection, @SSN638. Did you indeed serve on USS Whale?

I’ve got a fairly decent Sun collection here, too, with machines from the 3/80 to the Ultra 45, and a lot in between. I also was a Sun sysadmin for a long time.

On the Power 6 and Power 7, you can run RHEL fairly easily, with some effort, you can run Gentoo. RHEL can be gotten for free with a free developer subscription:

Download Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) | Red Hat Developer

Download Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) at no cost. Get access to RHEL cloud ready images, ISOs, and more

developers.redhat.com

Welcome to the forum!
- Alex

Alex,
Yes, I did - for 3 years. Among other duties I was the Sonar Officer. Interesting duty. Visited many exotic ports, just never surfaced!

The Sun machines are rugged and well designed - most with good documentation to rebuild them.
BTW - There is a Sun 3/160 machine on ebay I would like to restore. At least keep it from ending up in a land fill. Take a look. I would get it but I would have to drive to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to get it.
Thanks for the nice note.
John

 

[mark0x01]

It is possible to find IBM OS cd's, and they aren't too difficult to install. There are quite a few traps, like 512 vs 520 byte sector requirements on hdd's, depending on the OS you are installing.

 

[hunterjwizzard]

That's a really beautiful collection of Sun machines.

 

[sysadmindave]

Always enjoyed Sun hardware- so nicely engineered. Nice collection!

 

[legodude]

That 3/160 has been on Ebay for years. I've wanted to save it as well, but it is just too far away for me. Great collection, I love the full E450

 

[MrImprovement]

Which of the T-5 Servers do you have? I've been considering getting a T2 or newer system to run at home (the work I do can use Solaris 10 / OpenIndiana) and the T-5 specs appear quite nice.

 

[eeproks]

I ran some herds of 690MPs early in my career. Nifty machines I do not remember fondly, unlike most Sun gear I ran. The early days of Solaris multiprocessing were painful.

I'd love to find a reasonable cost 3/80 for my 68030 experiments.

 

[glitch]

Welcome! My first UNIX experience was on Grex, which was a public access UNIX system that, at the time, was running SunOS 4.1.4 on a SPARCserver 670MP!

 

[dotomrow]

I'm new here. I have a number of old Sun Microsoft servers that I restored back to life. The latest is a Sun SPARCserver 670MP that I restored from two machines. It has three 5 1/4 inch hard drives that sound like a turbine engine when they spool up. The UNIX OS version is SunOS rel5.5.1 (Solaris 2.5.1). My favorite is my Sun Ultra Enterprise 450 SPARC server - has 20 hard drives of 36G each. Runs UNIX Solaris 10 as well as Windows running inside UNIX on a SunPCi3 card. This 300 lb beast that keeps my office warm in the winter. Other Sun machines are Sunfire V440, SPARC T-5 server, SPARCclassic lunchbox computer, and Sunfire X2100. I found two IBM (Power 720 & P615) servers and quickly found out why they were inexpensive - you have to buy the OS from IBM. They make good sea anchors! The WANG Professional Computer has got to be the heaviest PC built with the largest PCBs. Other PCs I've collected are ones I purchased new like the IBM PC and Compq 850. Still others I found are Commodore 64, TRS80 model 1, Morrow PC, Franklin PC, lots of Apples, Kim-1, SYM-1 and Rockwell-65. But the latest one that fascinates me is the Altos 8000 CP/M machine with a real nice TeleVideo 910 CRT. I want program in Z80 Assembly Language, but it has become more of a challenge than I thought. I put a thread about this in the CP/M & MP/M topic. --- Thanks!

That is a very nice collection! I have a Sun E450 and a Sun E3000. My sun E450 have an issue I am trying to fix... I have the door cover that goes over the cdrom and floppy drive but the hinge is destroyed and Im looking to get another...does anyone here know where I could? I tried ebay and bunch of other places...I am actually looking into getting it 3d scanned and printed to replace it. Anyone have an extra one?