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Back in 2000, I got a letter from a Sun attorney threatening me with a lawsuit over some material on the "Rumors" section of my web site. They didn't like the fact that I'd copied documents (blueprints/engineering drawings) from their web server to mine and those documents were marked "Proprietary and Confidential". They also disliked the fact that I used the color purple on my web site and had a logo that was vaguely reminiscent of theirs.

I countered with the fact that I got the documents from a search on their publicly-accessible web server, and that after AOL, the next six top visitors of the site were Sun employees themselves hitting it from internal Sun proxy servers, and that no one had ever expressed concern over the logo or the purple color since the site was created in '97.

After a couple of weeks of negotiations, we came to an agreement and I made this public statement:

"I'm happy to announce that I have amicably resolved my situation with Sun regarding SunHELP.org. The site will function much like it has in the past, but in a manner that protects Sun's trademarks. In fact, although I will continue to operate independently of Sun, Sun has offered to help me provide you with better information about Sun and its products. I am pleased with the outcome and the manner in which this situation was resolved. I now consider this matter closed."

A couple of weeks later, I got a FedEx delivery of a brand-new Ultra 10 workstation as a "thank you" for "resolving the dispute in a friendly and speedy manner that avoided litigation". Since then, I've had good relations with the company. I was a member of the Opensolaris Pilot Program and have talked in email with both Scott McNealy and Jonathan Schwartz. Sun has greatly improved their relationship with third-party supporters since 2000; in fact, in 2006 they donated a fully-loaded T1000 system to SunHELP.

Nick at ThinkSecret probably ended up with some free Apple gear in exchange for shutting his site down - after all for Apple, "no publicity is bad publicity".

Back in 2000, I got a letter from a Sun attorney threatening me with a lawsuit over some material on the "Rumors" section of my web site. They didn't like the fact that I'd copied documents (blueprints/engineering drawings) from their web server to mine and those documents were marked "Proprietary and Confidential". They also disliked the fact that I used the color purple on my web site and had a logo that was vaguely reminiscent of theirs.

I countered with the fact that I got the documents from a search on their publicly-accessible web server, and that after AOL, the next six top visitors of the site were Sun employees themselves hitting it from internal Sun proxy servers, and that no one had ever expressed concern over the logo or the purple color since the site was created in '97.

After a couple of weeks of negotiations, we came to an agreement and I made this public statement:

"I'm happy to announce that I have amicably resolved my situation with Sun regarding SunHELP.org. The site will function much like it has in the past, but in a manner that protects Sun's trademarks. In fact, although I will continue to operate independently of Sun, Sun has offered to help me provide you with better information about Sun and its products. I am pleased with the outcome and the manner in which this situation was resolved. I now consider this matter closed."

A couple of weeks later, I got a FedEx delivery of a brand-new Ultra 10 workstation as a "thank you" for "resolving the dispute in a friendly and speedy manner that avoided litigation". Since then, I've had good relations with the company. I was a member of the Opensolaris Pilot Program and have talked in email with both Scott McNealy and Jonathan Schwartz. Sun has greatly improved their relationship with third-party supporters since 2000; in fact, in 2006 they donated a fully-loaded T1000 system to SunHELP.

Nick at ThinkSecret probably ended up with some free Apple gear in exchange for shutting his site down - after all for Apple, "no publicity is bad publicity".

Anyone who's had access to both a PS/2 computer and a old-style sun keyboard can tell you that even though it looks like a PS/2 connector, it isn't a PS/2 connector.

I do have both, but I've never tried connecting one to the other. The pinouts appear the same, so I've always considered it a PS/2 port. I never had a reason to connect a Sun keyboard to a PC. :-)

Did you even try the content on that page?

Hmm... old link. The software page still works, but I hadn't realized that all the other links have gone dark. It looks like even the sunhelp links have gone dead. Apparently, Belkin's still got 'em, though.

You mean Sun hardware uses strange refresh rates, which was really only true in regards to Sun's in-house designs. Unless you're using some of their really high-end visualisation hardware, most Sun graphics chipsets are standard PC fare, and you can get almost any "standard" refresh rate by setting it in OFW.

Remember that on most Sun workstations, the default resolution and refresh rate is 1152x864@60hz. If your flat panel doesn't support that resolution, sorry. Consult the Sun Framebuffer FAQ to see what resolutions your workstation supports, and how to set them.

As for the older framebuffers, I haven't found a PC monitor that hasn't worked with my old SBus machines with cg6 and tcx framebuffers.

Sun released Solaris for PowerPC eight years ago. It wouldn't be hard for them to bring back if they wanted.

Right now, my email client is connected through an SSH tunnel to my server at Pair, and it's downloading all the mail that my monstrous procmail script on the Pair server has presorted and classified. I am happy.

• Ebay for starters.
  
• comp.sys.sun.wanted
• comp.sys.sun.misc
• comp.sys.sun.hardware
  found some good stuff there
  
• http://www.sunhelp.org/info-sparcbook.php
  this used to be a good site.
  
• http://www.sunfreeware.com/
  that's a good place for solaris software
  

Yes, there are, or once were, Sun notebooks. A quick google search turned up this:
email post.

As far as I could ever tell, they were very bulky. They look like an IPX, of which half is the screen. But, yes, they did exist. There are lots of Intel platforms running Solaris (why, I don't know), but this one specifically describes the 13w3 connector, which if you've ever seen is is unique to sun, and the most convoluted thing in the world. I don't think there ever was a frame buffer with a 13w3 that would work on an intel platform.

~Will

They've done it before, although they didn't have much success then either. I thought they gave up after that (outside of Cobalt). Solaris x86 is coming back though, which is probably more major news.

I've worked in a number of large Solaris shops, and never ONCE has a Sun sales droid or FE/SE asked about licenses. We spend $$$ on systems and support contracts; they dont bicker about petty things like per-CPU licenses for the operating system.

I've got some reader reports about the Sol9 licensing issue on my web site, SunHELP.

I thought it might have finally been an answer to that eternal question.

This would have been better suited for the Gnome thread; but its offtopic, nonetheless..

But still, sun is far from fucked - The aftermarket Sun Enterprise systems are selling like hotcakes from 3rd parties - This is bad for sun, but not -all- bad. You buy that 5500? You need support for it. If you get support from Sun, you get to pay an additional premium since you didnt buy it from them or a sun VAR.

Sales of the USIII line are now above the USII line. Sun expects to be in the black by the end of 2q.

Hit Bill Bradfords great site for more details: sunhelp.org

Actually that is not entirely true. Sun first got in to the x86 market with some hardware believe it or not. They made an x86 line of workstations with a 80386 processors (386i/150 and 386i/250) and even a few 486's right before ditching the x86 line of workstations. This was around the time when Sun was still using Motorola 68020 and 68030 processors for their Sun-3 line. See more about this in the Sun Hardware Reference.

According to SunHELP, all Sun NYC employees are OK.

. . .

You can find a catalogue of recent Sun reference prices at UnixHub.com

UnixHub also has relevant short pieces e.g. on SparcBooks which may also be of interest. Look a little down the main page past the updates to the links on the left.

Disclaimer - I know the guy who runs the site.

Disclaimer - I hope he's not /.'d. You can read the reasons why (SDSL) on his site ;)

Just in case no one's already mentioned it SunHelp.org is also a very handy site.

You'll want to check out www.sunhelp.org. Mr. Bill (the ever-so-gracious host there) knows his stuff and has some links to Sun equipment vendors.

Since everyone and their brother has personal recommendations, here are mine, by category:

Category 1 -- Some cash to burn, want new toys
Sun Blade 100. I'd buy one of these new (less than $1000 from Sun) if I were only going to run Solaris 8. Nevermind that this thing is a PC in SPARC clothing. Hell, even the CPU is socketed! Gasp! Bear in mind that the Blade 100 can only run Solaris 8, 4/01 HW release or later.

Category 2 -- Something Ultra, mid-range prices
If I were to go out and buy a Sun machine today, it'd be an Ultra 2. They're a bit expensive still ($500-$900-ish), but can use 2 CPU's (on module boards), S-Bus cards, and has a UPA slot for a decent (read: Creator 3D) video board. They're also a VERY VERY solid machine. You can get an Ultra 1 for a bit less, but it only has 1 CPU (soldered to the mobo)....

Category 3 -- Less cash, more machine.
Here I'd recommend a SPARCstation 20. The only really acceptable configuration these days involves dual-75mhz processors, at least 128mb of RAM, and an SX video VSIMM. The SPARCstation 20 had a neat video configuration -- you could either use a TGX+ S-Bus video board (8-bit video only), or use the built-on-to-the-mobo SX (24-bit) frame buffer. The SX buffer is good, but you need to get a VSIMM to make it work (the mobo has no video RAM on it!). I paid ~$100 for my VSIMM from MemoryX. The SPARCstation 20 will run anything from Solaris 2.5.1 through Solaris 9 (yes, it works. We're a Gold Beta site... No, I can't burn you a copy! :)

Category 4 -- Even less cash, less performance
A SPARCstation 5 gives OK performance for a good price. Get a 110mhz SPARC 5. The standard 70mhz model is too dog-slow. The 170mhz model is weird; Linux doesn't support it at all... The architecture is just... weird. :-) You can get a SPARC 5 for $200 or so. Again, get lots of memory.

The biggest trick to getting a decent Sun workstation is MEMORY. Don't skimp; get at least 128MB, shoot for 256MB (or anything over 192...) if at all possible.

Also remember that ALL of the workstations above use SCSI disks. They all have SCA connectors; your standard, run-of-the-mill SCSI disk won't work internal to the case. What I tend to do is use some variety of external disk pack with the SPARCstations to fit standard SCSI devices onto it. Right now, I have my 8x Yamaha CD burner plugged into the SPARCstation 20's external SCSI bus. It works great!

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me -- I actually enjoy answering SPARC & Sun-related questions... Email me at: dmurphy-slashdot AT nbvb DOT com.

Thanks!

--nbvb

• http://www.obsolyte.com/
• http://www.sunhelp.org/

Also, the "Xserver jumbo patch" is just the SunOS or Solaris patch for the Xserver, available from sunsolve.sun.com. (For most OS versions, it's included in the OpenWindows patches and labeled as the Xsun patch.)

Frequently Asked Questions About Buying An Old Sun System (FAQABOSS)

Don't expect much from the graphics subsystems - most of the frame buffers that are supported are only 8 bit and unaccelerated. My LX would run Gnome and KDE, but it was excruciating. I am now running most of my Sparc gear (IPX, 2 Classics, an LX and a 2xSM51 Sparc 10) on OpenBSD. The IPX makes a great firewall with the addition of another NIC, and the 'lunchbox' Sparcs are nice and tidy. Watch the heat issues, especially with newer high RPM SCSI drives...

By the way, does anyone know if the PCMCIA - SBUS bridge (nell) is due for attention? What about pthreads and mysql on the old Sparcs?

• This may sound kind of way out there, but here goes: Why aren't there UltraSPARC chipsets for laptops?
  • Short answer - very little demand.

  • There is the UltraBook though, from Tadpole.

    US2e would be pretty ideal for laptops - it has most of the chipset on die already (the "northbridge"). Power efficient too. Demand is another matter...

Oddly, I contributed that story, but no one ever mentioned it on Slashdot.

Try checking out http://www.sunhelp.org or http://docs.sun.com. There is a wealth of knowledge out there.. you just have to search for it.. like with Linux. On the plus side, if you ARE an Enterprise customer willing to pay you can get excellent help from Sun tech support directly via the phone. Also, there is a ton of documentation that comes on both CD and in print format with a new Sun and a copy of Solaris these days. I'd be very suprised if the answers to almost anything related to the platform itself (and not a third party application) is not handled by the included documentation or the stuff on the CD's.

I fixed the ghosting with a better video cable. It looks great now!

I found timing parameters for the SUN GX and TGX in the Sun framebuffer FAQ found on sunhelp.org. There are actual modelines for the TGX in the FAQ. Unfortunately I can't test any of them as my video card dosen't have a fast enough dot clock. Despite what a lot of web pages say (many are wrong) the GDM-1962B has fixed horizontal refresh or line rates of 61.9KHz and 71.7KHz. I don't believe it actually supports 1024x768 at all. My modeline uses a 60.3KHz line refresh for a resolution of 1024x768. This shouldn't be supported. The monitor is old and I have played around with some of the internal adjustments, so I suspect that it is running outside of its factory specs. :-)

If you are having trouble with image position or pincusion take the GDM-1962's cover off. I found a bunch of fairly well labled adjustment screws.

Sun Help's Rumor Page contains some corona references.

You don't tell in your question if you are new or not on the Sparc platform. If you are an old-timer on Sun hardware, you might know better than me. However, I had RedHat 5.2 and Debian 2.1 working on SparcStation 10.

First, you might want to have a look at the Sun Hardware Reference here. Good info on the peculiarity of Sun machine.

Sun's "BIOS" are called PROM. The PROM have a lot of functionnality (network access, etc). When you boot, a combination of key get you to a PROM prompt (can't remember the combination on the top of my head; check out the SHR). From there, if your CD-ROM is bootable AND you have a PROM v2.0 or higher, typing "boot cdrom" will boot your CD-ROM. If you have an older PROM, the command is quite a bit more complicated; check Part 2 of the SHR. You can also boot a floppy by typing (you guessed it !) "boot floppy". Note that Sun floppy does not have an eject button (like the Mac). To eject your floppy, "eject floppy" should work (at least from the OS prompt; don't know if this work at the PROM prompt).

From there on, just wipe the entire disk and install as usual. You might want to know that, for some reasons unknown to me, on Sun machine you MUST have your third partition (sda3) of type "whole disk" emcompassing the whole drive. SHR as probably somthing to say on the matter.

This might not be particularly useful for your situation. I am not on my Sun right now, and can't give much more info. You should check the installation manual of your distribution for more specific info. In particuliar, RedHat is well documented on the specific of installing on a Sun.

Good luck and enjoy !

There is a rumor going around that Solaris8 will be IPv6 ready. But if you want to play around with IPv6 on your solaris box, you are welcome to try.

Just so you don't think the commercial unices don't want to play with linux.