Sun Sparc 5 Nostalgia

barl0w writes with what he calls "an awesome on-going story over at OS News about a Sun Sparc 5 coming alive again." Like the article's author points out, if you really want 64-bit computing, it's available cheaply on eBay.

Comments

Again?

[ArmageddonLord]

What do you mean coming alive again? The ECE computer lab here at rutgers it still filled with them!

Re:Correction

[sirket]

I'm glad someone pointed this out. And as for nostalgic? WTF did an ultra 5 become nostalgic?

-sirket

I've got an Ultra 5 and a Sparc Station 5!

[vrai]

I still use my Ultra 5 (the 360Mhz model) as my second desktop machine. Runs Solaris 9, blackbox and an assortment of KDE apps (mostly KMail and Konqueror). It's a bit slow but does the job, plus there are few keyboards that beat the Type 5c. Sadly it will be retired from desktop duty this year but will live on as my home webserver.

My SparcStation 5 (with a mighty 110Mhz microSparc) holds my CVS repository and my MP3s (via NFS and Samba). In order to save money the larger of its two drives (a 36Gb IBM) is a 50pin one that I've duck taped in to the CD bay. Some what dodgy, but I haven't had any problems with it in three years of use. This one runs and old version of Debian (2.2.20) but is safely hidden behind my firewall.

Whilst I could obviously get more powerful machines they do the job, are rock solid (both in hardware and software terms), and cost a total of 140GBP for the two of them. Plus they look a damn site nicer than boring old wintel box.

64 bit a marketing tool?

[sirket]

This line pissed me off:

Back then, 64-bits was more of a marketing tool, and in many respects, still is.

64 bit gave higher precision for use on CAD workstations. Anyone who every used a Sun workstation for it's intended purpose would know this.

-sirket

Erm, so?

[grahamlee]

The Ultra 5 is a 'modern' UltraSPARC-based system. Solaris still supports the platform; indeed even Solaris 10 will still support the U5 (and the Ultra 2, but not the Ultra 1. The UltraSPARCs used in the Ultra 1 had a comedy bug anyway, which meant that they shouldn't be used in 64 bit mode). Now, if they'd been talking about the SPARCstation 5, I would have been interested.

The SS5 had a HyperSPARC processor, just like the SPARCStation 2 over in the corner of this room (in a 'rack' consisting of a pair of Ultra 1s, the SS2 and some spacers made of plastic). This was a good old-fashioned rock-steady 32bit Sun machine, just like they used to make before they went all cheap (that's the build price, not the retail price!). The principle difference as far as I'm concerned between the SS5 and the SS2, and the reason I'd be interested to hear about the longevity of the SS5, is that the 5 can run NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP for SPARC platform whereas the 2 cannot.

An Ultra 5, on the other hand, is just Yet Another 64-bit Solaris Box like the two Ultra 1s behind me or the 4-way Enterprise server across the way.

Boring, not /. worthy article

[Anonymous Coward]

Any nostalga computing /. posts should only include
1. stuff from 1990 or earlier
2. square peg in a round hole
2.1. ethernet in a c64
2.2. web server on a TRS80
2.3. porting modern software to old obscure platforms
3. Univac 1

Alive again? WTF, it never died!

[bazik]

My main desktop is a Sun Ultra5 w/ 440MHz, 512MB RAM and 2x 18gb U320 SCSI disks (attached to a Sym22801). Who said the Ultra5 ever died?

The only disadvantage of the Ultra5/10 is the slow IDE bus, but you can put a scsi controller in it.

The board (depending on the version) can take up to 1GB ram and a 440MHz Ultrasparc IIi w/ 2 MB CPU cache. So this is a really nice box and fast enough for most work.

Re:Not Sparc 5...Ultra 5!

[j-turkey]

The thing these kids don't understand is that back in the day, kit was built to last. Old SPARCStation 5's are dead reliable, and if you want a DNS, mail, a web server, a CVS server, whatever, they're perfect for the task. And you can get a lot done with a box like a 10 or a 20, they'll happily support 20 users running terminals, editors, compilers, etc etc. Only thing that's slow is their frame buffers. Buy a modern PC and it's useless in 3 years, it was never made to last.

Those old Sparc5's (or any other cool, old boxes)were cool and all, and I don't mean to be argumentative, but let's be realistic. If you want to run a small to midsized DNS, mail, web, or CVS server, a Sparc5 can handle it very well. Furthermore, the hardware in those boxes is built to a higher standard than most commodity PC hardware....and there will always be significant numbers of geeks out there running small-time Linux servers on old hardware, from commodity PC hardware to old servers. Sure a modern PC is useless for PC-ish stuff within three years (ie running the latest bleeding-edge desktop OS, etc), however, for those same tasks, outdated hardware can be just as well suited to the task.

My point is that anyone who "gets it" (in this sense), will just get it -- those who don't never will. They use their computers for completely different reasons than you and have completely different requirements than you and I. Much of the obselescence of the desktop PC within three years comes from software abstraction keeping pace with faster hardware. Servers don't necessarily have the same fate. It's hard to make a comparison in that sense...especially for people like you who probably know their shit well enough to consider the aforementioned abstraction more of a hinderance than a help. In the mean time, enjoy the pace at which hardware gets faster and cheaper :)