this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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Help me buy a retro Sparc machine (lemmy.sdf.org)
submitted 1 year ago by mnrockclimber@lemmy.sdf.org to c/retrocomputing@lemmy.sdf.org
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I’m curious about picking up a mid to late 90’s Sparc desktop/server. Just to keep rounding out my retro collection. I’m pretty much good on vintage macs and PCs and want to get something similar to the servers I used to bounce around back in the day.

Any models in particular that are great or to avoid? I’m thinking SparcStation or maybe an ultra 1-5. What do I need to look for? Obviously the drive will need to be replaced and I’ll want Ethernet. But anything else to be aware of? I see some eBay listings call out good or bad nvram too.

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[–] elb@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I agree with all of this.

For me, I think the best "I want the SPARC experience with minimum fuss" boxes are the SS 5/20 (which are very similar machines, the SS20 is sort of a multiprocessor SS5) or the Ultra 1/2 desktop workstations. All of those are SBUS machines (there are PCI machines with the Ultra 2 CPU and chipset, too, I think, but they're not just called "Ultra 2"?).

I also think of Solaris 7 as peak Solaris, I don't think you're alone there @PAPPP@lemmy.sdf.org . If you want something past Solaris 7, just go with OpenSolaris/OpenIndiana/etc. and do "new Solaris" whole hog.

[–] PAPPP@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 1 year ago

IIRC, the Ultra 1 and 2 are strictly SBus machines, the all the later Ultra 5/10/30/60/80 are PCI machines, plus most but not all members of the family have UPA slots with that freaky two rows of card edge connector for fancy video boards?

For readers not exposed to lots of Sun lore, Ultras were distinguished from SparcStations because they host 64 bit SPARCv9 parts branded "UltraSPARC," as opposed to the 4m SparcStations which were based on 32-bit SPARCv8 processors.

I'll also add that, if you don't want to fuck around with large pieces of aging hardware and just want to marinate yourself in a retro Solaris environment, the qemu sparc support is really good. Folks restoring Sun stuff with disc issues often do their installs via netboot from an emulated server. Adafruit even has a beginner click-by-click tutorial for spinning your own emulated Sun4m system.