[SunRescue] What should I look for?

[James Lockwood]

On Fri, 28 May 1999, Jason Alexander wrote:

> Last time I checked, the Ultra10 and Ultra5 only had EIDE drives, and
> didn't even come close to using UDMA or anything.  The specs I read from
> Sun's web site in March claimed 16.6 MB/s, which is currently 1/3 of the
> available IDE transfer rates on newer PC boards (66  MB/s is out).  Of
> course, this is probably external transfer rate, and the disk in fact is
> slower than that.   They do mention version 2.1 compliant PCI 66 on their
> PCI page.  You can always put a 2940UW2 in a PCI slot, but you can't boot
> to scsi.

There is no reason you would want to put an Adaptec SCSI card in an Ultra
5/10.  I repeat, there is no reason.

Dual-channel Symbios UW cards are in the $75 range right now, and are
fully supported by OBP including booting.  This chipset is used in the
current Ultra line (U30/60/450 and others) as the native SCSI interface
(driver name is glm).  Sun's dual-channel SCSI cards are just Symbios
53c875-based cards, they don't even change the name on the label.

> Only 512 Megs memory?  Yes, this is more than my Pentium Pro machine can
> do, but in the last couple years 512 is SMALL.  256MB is comfortable right
> now, so I imagine the Ultra5 with 512 MB ram would feel really small and
> slow in a year.

The Ultra 5 and 10 share the same motherboard.  The Ultra 10 can go to 1GB
RAM, so can the Ultra 5.  You have to make sure that the SIMMs you use are
short enough to clear the floppy drive, though.  Telling people that the
U5 was limited to 512MB was a marketing decision, nothing more (as was the
act of making the U5's UPA64S slot inaccessible, something I dislike
more).

> Plus, 24-bit graphics, in my opinion, >sucks< if it can only do a
> resolution of 1152x768.  Who in the heck gives a crap about 8bit.   If it's
> 8-bit, I will make it headless rather than torture myself with it's
> pixelated color-deficit.  The Ultra10 and Ultra5 are using a RagePro or
> some ATI card, but my Matrox Millenium from 3 years ago is a much better 2D
> card, where I can do 1280x1024 with a decent refresh (76Hz) @ 16/24 bits.
> The ATI card does have better 3D support, but it's still not GLIDE or
> anything decent, so it's one-legged 3D support. =)

The onboard video (PGX24) in the U5/U10 can do _1152x900_ in 24-bit. 
Again, if you need higher resolution in 24-bit, you can go to a commodity
card:  8mb ATI Rage cards work just fine at higher resolutions and are
automatically supported by OBP for booting and everything else.

For roughly $150 ($75 for SCSI card, $75 for new framebuffer) you can
remove both of these deficiencies.  This is a cost that must be factored
in if you need these capabilities, but they are by no means show-stoppers.

Personally, I'm more miffed at Sun for not providing a decent 48bpp
framebuffer with half-decent texturing on the high-end.  A several year
old Indigo2/IMPACT (costing less than just a Sun Elite3d m6 card) does
this quite well.  The fact that any modern 3D framebuffer is coming in
only a 24bpp version (and therefore will have mach banding) is a crying
shame.

> The engineering is so stinking well-done, that an older, but higher-model
> sun (I still like the Sparc 20/71's) is a better deal than a cheap new one.
>  Yes, the analogy breaks in some ways, since cars are not as dependent on
> the engine speed as computers are on CPU.  The Ultra5/10 do come with a
> very nice processor selection.  

I agree with you, for the most part.  The pizzabox Suns are all
exceptionally well-done.  The U5/10 are built by Mitac in the far east and
do not share the same quality of workmanship (they are, after all,
primarily PC manufacturers).

For the code I'm working on now, even the low-end U5 outperforms a 500MHz
P-III by over 40%.  Therefore, it's ideal for my application.  IMHO they
make great desktop machines, but unless you get terrific deals (like the
current academic promos) the AXi makes a better server.

> I am still searching for the 300$ headless Sparc 5|10/41|70.  A sparc 5/70
> would be nice.

Headless meaning bare with memory and disk?  You'd have a tough time
finding that, 64mb of memory and a 2gb disk will eat up most of that just
by itself.  If you're looking for totally bare base units, those are a
cinch to find at that price (GSTek has SS5/85's for $300/ea and you can do
much better on newsgroups).

-James