[geeks] Crashing the Used UltraSPARC Market

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

My employer is getting ready to get rid of (ie: give away, recycle,
dump, whatever) a large amount of Sun equipment.  The systems range from
the pedestrian Ultra 1E, Ultra 2, and SPARCstation 20 to the
industrial-looking and nearly indestructable Tatung clones thereof to
the exotic Cyclequad and Cycle-UP 520.  My employer has put me in charge
of getting rid of the extras, and I really don't want to see any of
these machines go to the dump.

We're moving in late November, and don't want to take anything we're not
using.  This is just a heads-up so that you folks can spread the word to
anyone whom you think might be interested.  I'll have a full inventory
soon.

In my mind, I'd most like to see these systems go to any BSD or Linux
(or other free OS or free software) maintainer who would benefit from
SMP-capable UltraSPARC hardware[0], or possibly to a school or other
nonprofit that would benefit from them.  However, my understanding is
that these machines are fully depreciated, so, really, $WORK would be
happy that they went to anyone.

A cursory check shows these systems to mostly be fully-equipped with at
least two processors per (where applicable), healthy amounts of memory,
and smallish disks[1].  These machines were EDA and CAD workstations, so
most of them have Creator3D graphics, as well.

In my rough estimation (again, I'll have a better idea once I get a full
inventory of everything), there are about 40 machines that will need to
find homes.  So, don't be shy.

If you want one (or more), you'll need to either pick your systems up
from my house in Elgin, or I'll deliver anywhere in Austin[2], or you'll
need to pay me[3] shipping and packaging.  I will consider shipping
systems for free to bona fide maintainers of free operating system
projects, but I obviously cannot afford to foot the bill for everyone.



[0] I'd LOVE to have SMP support on OpenBSD and NetBSD, for example, so
     I will make an attempt to contact those maintainers personally.  I
     have no idea whose tree to shake for Linux on UltraSPARC.  If you
     know someone working on Linux or a similar project on UltraSPARC,
     please forward this message to him or her.
[1] Disks I cannot promise.  I'm going to attempt to get the okay to
     hand out machines with disks that I've wiped and certified, but I do
     work for a semiconductor design firm, so there may be well-justified
     paranoia about disks in machines that were used in the design
     process.
[2] Or possible elsewhere in Texas, for a small bribe.  If you're within
     an hour or so of Austin, it's more of a PITA for me to ship than
     deliver.
[3] In advance.  I've gotten jerked around on shipping charges far too
     often on freebies.
-- 
Jonathan Patschke   )  "When we are young, wandering the face of the
Elgin, TX          (    earth, wondering what our dreams might be worth,
USA                 )   learning that we're only immortal--for a limited
                    (    time."                              --Neil Peart