[rescue] Sun 3/50 scsi boot string

Mon Dec 26 14:05:26 EST 2022

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks! I'll hit you up off the list for the spare cap. You're right, they
are quite pricey on Digikey.

Sounds like the 3/260 will be a fun one. Do they run on plain 120VAC? I had
a look at my 3/160 and it will definitely require some work but I'm
inspired to get it going. I think it's just the power supply as it ran
until many years ago until I heard a big pop and the disks stopped
spinning. It might be the 12V section since the fans still run. I'll take
it apart and recap it.

Yes, driving the display on my 3/50 will be another little side project. I
got some hints from others here and ordered a DB-9 breakout connector in
order to mod a VGA cable to make a custom interface dongle. I want to avoid
having to get a CRT monitor as space is always a premium. The Dell 2007fpb
I have seems to drive a plain bwtwo (13W3 version FB), so I don't see why I
can't get the 3/50 to work on it as well. Thoughts? I know - not very
"vintage" but I have to find a happy medium.

WRT memory, It didn't dawn on me until now that those Helios boards are an
expansion to the on-board memory. So in both of our cases we have 8MB. Your
board has 4 expansion slots and mine has 8. So I presume I could upgrade
mine to 12MB. Of course looking at the SIMMs they have a special
Helios/Piiceon P/N which are probably unobtainium. They do look very
similar to the 3/60 SIMMs but I'm not sure if they are the same. Either
way, the 3/60 SIMMS are probably equally unobtainium.

-Kurt

On Sun, Dec 25, 2022 at 6:08 PM Jonathan Chapman via rescue <
rescue at sunhelp.org> wrote:

> Kurt,
>
> IIRC the cutoff is ROM v2.6 as the first version that supports booting IDs
> other than 0, so that makes sense!
>
> I had the replacement tantalum capacitor in stock. I believe I noted the
> capacity and voltage in the writeup, but you may find that the replacements
> are very expensive. Let me know if you require one, as I have many.
>
> Sounds like you've got a nice set of Sun3 boxes! I've got the 3/50, a
> 3/160, and a new-to-me 3/260 I haven't gone through yet. The 3/50 was my
> first Sun3 machine, and I was *thrilled* to find it had the RAM upgrade,
> as that's of course one of the biggest drawbacks to the 3/50. Just this
> week, I finally got an ECL monochrome monitor for the 3/50, which works but
> is currently being recapped as it was showing signs of a failing cap in the
> cathode supply circuit.
>
> W.R.T. RAM sizing, that upgrade board really does give 8 MB RAM on my
> system, so that's correct -- just not possible with a *stock* Sun 3/50.
>
> Thanks,
> Jonathan
>
> ------- Original Message -------
> On Sunday, December 25th, 2022 at 14:18, Kurt Nowak via rescue <
> rescue at sunhelp.org> wrote:
>
> Hi Jonathan,
>
> Thanks! Yes, that is what I had suspected as well since mine will also
> boot with ID 0 - sd(0,0,0). I'll download the latest and greatest ROM image
> from sun3arc and flash a new one after I order a new blank. Mine is not
> super old, its v2.3 where the latest sun3arc has is v2.8. But maybe old
> enough to not cause it to boot sd(0,18,0). We'll see...
>
> Also thanks for doing the writeup. Mine also has the same corroded
> tantalum capacitor but the leads are still intact. Would you happen to have
> a source/PN for the one you replaced it with? Its hard to read the script
> on the current one. The machine seems to run fine but I would feel more
> comfortable replacing it since I've heard bad things about tantalum caps
> exploding. I also had the dead battery and one of the micro fuses was
> missing. I replaced the fuse but noticed that both holders were really
> loose in holding the fuses, so I'll look at replacing those holders. I see
> both Mouser and Newark carry the LittleFuse series 273 micro fuses -
> hopefully they have the holders as well.
>
> Generally the machine works great so far as a diskless client off of my
> 3/60. I have a small Sun3 "zoo" happening at the moment
> (3/80,3/60,3/110,3/160 and 3/50) with my goal of getting them all up and
> running with SunOS 4.1.1. Both the 3/80 and 3/60 are up and running and
> have the latest ROMs and can boot off of CD. Since the 3/60 is the common
> arch for the remaining creatures I decided to install the OS as a
> heterogenous server, serving up the 3/50 and 3/110 (eventually the 3/160
> too) as diskless clients. But my goal was to make those stand alone
> machines, so following the instructions in Appendix C of the 4.1.1
> installation manual I was able to do a remote CD installation on both
> machines. Thanks to Jay York for providing a pair of old Seagate drives
> along with other stuff for those two.
> Regarding the main board, it was interesting to see what yours looks like.
> My configuration is a bit different - I have an interesting 4/8MB add-on
> Helios expansion board with 4 empty slots. Maybe this was a pretty common
> upgrade - I don't know. I don't have any spares so I'll leave it as 4MB.
> Speaking of memory, yeah I, don't know why it always seems to show double
> the amount of memory that is physically installed when the machine goes
> through POST - mine also comes up with having 8MB. This seems to be common
> to all my Sun 3 machines though. Even the 3/80 has 12MB installed but shows
> up as having 24MB.
>
> Here are some pictures:
>
> https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19KeBZffqrzuo1eMb-m21trSNLI3ixRqq?usp=share_link
>
> -Kurt
>
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 24, 2022 at 4:52 PM Jonathan Chapman via rescue <
> rescue at sunhelp.org> wrote:
>
>> Kurt,
>>
>> You probably have an older ROM revision that'll only boot off sd0, found
>> that out myself:
>>
>> http://www.glitchwrks.com/2022/09/19/sun-3-50
>>
>> Bit about booting off sd0 is near the bottom of the writeup.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Jonathan
>>
>> ------- Original Message -------
>> On Saturday, December 24th, 2022 at 14:59, Kurt Nowak via rescue <
>> rescue at sunhelp.org> wrote:
>>
>> I just finished installing SunOS 4.1.1 on my Sun 3/50 and the disk is set
>> at ID 3 which in traditional Sun3 maps to sd6. My other Sun3's boot with >b
>> sd(0,18,0) but the 3/50 wont accept that. I looked in the Sun FE handbook
>> on bitsavers but couldn't find anything there unique to the 3/50. I'm
>> pretty sure my SCSI chain is ok or the installation wouldn't have worked.
>> Any clues?
>>
>> -Kurt
>>
>>
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>>
>
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>
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