[SunRescue] come closer and let me pick your brain.

[Mike Hebel]

>>	Ok I got several requests for information from the wise sages of
>>this list. I ran into a guy over the weekend who has a LOT of goverment
>>surplus sparc stuff, luckly he has no idea what sun stuff is or does. Here
>>is the info I need to move forward in no particular order.

IANAE - (I Am Not An Expert) but I'll do my best. ;-)

>>	1. I bought a sparc IPX off of the guy for $10. It has no HD and no
>>RAM in it. What kind of ram does this item take and can I put any 50 pin
>>SCSI HD into it or is their a size type restriction? What are the plastic
A
>>dial and B dial for? Are they just covers over something else? Heck I just
>>looked at it again , where does the keyboard go? HELP!

The IPX takes standard 72-pin parity SIMMS.  (36 bit)  Most SIMMS of 70ns or
better will work.  Yes it takes a standard SCSI II hard drive without a
problem.  The only issue that I know of is that the root partition of any OS
on the drive must be in the first 2gig of the drive or the system will not
boot from it.  Later PROM versions fixed this but YMMV.   The "dial"s are
covers for the A and B serial ports.  Serial port A is the output of the
system if no keyboard is hooked up.  You can use a Mac modem cable and a
null-modem adapter to connect a terminal or pc to it.  The serial port
settings are usually 9600,N,8,1.  The keyboard is the plug labeled with a
rectangle inside a rectangle - it should be right next to the picture of a
speaker.  You need a Sun keyboard and mouse or a Sun adapter.

>>	2. He had a pile (approximately 4 feet high) of Sparc station 1 , 1 +
>>, 2 , and one 5 . Are these worth picking up and how much , unknown if
they
>>work at this time.

Definitely worth acquiring if you have the money and space!  If you can't
use them for dedicated purposes (the 5 actually would make a good
workstation if a bit slow) then you can most likely sell/trade them for
whatever.  I'm sure a few people on this list might be looking to pick up a
few of these.

>>	3. I got a case of unknown sparc type. It has the strangest SCSI
>>connector on the back. Labeled as a sparc 511 case. What is/was this for?
>>Has a scsi 50 pin cable inside. Beyond that I am at a loss and figure
stuff
>>is missing out of it, but for $1 how wrong could I go?

You got me but there should be a matching part number in the Sun Hardware
Reference on sunhelp.org  -  http://www.sunhelp.org/pages.php?page=info-ref

>>	4. This is the bigge I am curious about. He had 3 or 4 Sun Mass
>>Storage cases in the Shop. 3' by 3' by 3' cubes. Obviously sun gear but I
>>was unfamiliar with them, what are they? Should I make an offer on one ,
>>what should be in them? If this some sort of drive array system?

Hmmm... I know these are obviously storage boxes of some kind.  I'm sure
someone else on this list could provide you some better information.  The
best I can do is tell you to check the part number on the hardware
reference. (See previous link.)

Hope this helps!

Sincerely,

Mike Hebel