[rescue] Couple of questions from a SPARC newbie

[Bill Vinson]

A generous individual in my Linux Users Group (TriLUG) was kind enough 
to give me an old SPARCstation IPX.  I have never owned a Sparc before, 
but always have wanted to play with one.  I don't have a monitor or 
keyboard yet, but I have managed to rig a serial console using a Mac to 
PC modem cable and a null modem adapter.  It seems I have a dead NVRAM 
chip as I get a battery failure (f2000003) and the mac address is 
ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff.  And it kindly tells me to "Replace TOD/NVRAM".

Here are some newbie questions I have:

1.	Is there anywhere that has PDF hardware manuals for the IPX?  I 
looked at Sun, but have yet to find any, but I love to dig into to all 
the info I can get on my hardware.

2.	Is there somewhere cheap I can order a new NVRAM?  Is it hard to 
install?

3.	It has 16MB and 2 framebuffers (internal + 1 sbus card).  Can I add 
an SBUS ethernet adapter to turn it into a firewall/router?  I also plan 
to buy at least 16MB more memory.  Is there anywhere cheap you all can 
recommend?

4.	Will any AUI to UTP adapter work to plug in cat 5 cable?  I saw 
some cheap ones on ebay for Cisco routers, but AUI converters are 
ubiquitous right?

5.	I haven't decided what I will run yet, but plan on either running 
OpenBSD or OpenBSD + Solaris on a second drive (to play with 
occasionally)

6.	Doesn't seem to boot.  "boot disk" says "The file just loaded does 
not appear to be executable".  I assume this means there is no OS on the 
system.  It tries to boot off the net by default.

7.	Considering picking up a couple of 411 enclosures for an external 
drive at CD-ROM.  Any good suggestions or is ebay best?

Thanks all for any help or good links so I can learn more.  I know it 
isn't worth sinking too much money into this guy (And I couldn't even if 
it was as I still haven't found a new job :), but I love old hardware 
and I have been wanting a small cool looking firewall to replace my 
large 486.

Thanks,
Bill