How many SPARCs is too many SPARCs?

How many SPARCs is too many SPARCs? Posted on 2025-08-20 Contents Background I was browsing /r/vintagecomputing, as you do, and I came across this post: Hi all. Back in the day I was a developer working exclusively on Solaris. About 25 years ago, for one reason and another I came into possession of about 30 assorted SPARC based workstations and a few other bits and bobs, network/SCSI cards, keyboards, mice, etc. I think there's also one UltraSPARC in there too. This stuff was well past its prime even then. I need to clear out the space they're stored in and it would be a shame for them to end up in landfill, so if anyone wants them they're free to a good home. They're currently located in West Berkshire, England. It should be noted that none of these machines have been powered up in well over a decade. I've no idea if any of them still work and with the exception of the one UltaSPARC I'm not sure what use they'd be to anyone. But the offer's there. Free SPARC machines? Not too far from me? Well it would be rude not to. If you're new here, hi! I have been on a bit of a 90's RISC/UNIX bender recently - see previous posts. Clearly I need some IBM RS/6000 in my life, but they are hard to find. And clearly I need some 32-bit SPARCV8, to go with the 64-bit SPARCV9 Ultra 80. Also I need more space. And money. Send help. The Collection The machines were in Newbury and the owner needed to clear the whole lot, so wasn't particularly interested in people coming and collecting one at a time. So, I said I could come down right away (it's only a ~3 hour drive each way) and take as many as would fit into my car. The vendor was actually surprised at all the interest, and in the end we agreed I could take about half the pile, leaving half for the other people who were coming later. Newbury is about 120 miles from me, so on Monday 18 August, I set off at 5pm for Operation SPARC RESCUE. The trip was uneventful and the vendor was very kind, and six hours later I'm back at home and realising I really don't have anywhere to put them. So what do we have? The Machines From newest to oldest we have: The machines have various labels indicating many of them came from the investment bank Credit Suisse. It was also interesting to see how the cases got more plastic (and I presume cheaper) as time went on. The early stuff is very heavy and has a lot of metal - the later stuff, not so much. Sun Fire V100 - circa 2002 A rack-mount server with a 500MHz 64-bit UltraSPARC-IIe, and 1024 MiB of RAM. No hard disks. There's a smart-card installed in a slot at the rear of the machine, which I believe holds system configuration information (pretty clever idea really - it would make it easy to bring up a replacement machine with the same MAC address as a failed one). The Lights-Out Management (LOM) works over Serial (9600/8N1) with a DE9 to RJ45 adapter cable. The LOM starts up OK, and the machine gets to the OpenFirmware 4.0 prompt. It uses EIDE internally, and has no hard disks but does have a slim-line CD-ROM. I threw in a spare 9GB Quantum EIDE drive and it seemed to detect it. It came with a Debian Etch CD-R in the tray, but I crashed on boot with Illegal Instruction: Resetting ... LOM event: +0h14m11s host reset Sun Fire V100 (UltraSPARC-IIe 500MHz), No Keyboard OpenBoot 4.0, 1024 MB memory installed, Serial #52400205. Ethernet address 0:3:ba:1f:90:4d, Host ID: 831f904d. Executing last command: boot cdrom Boot device: /pci@1f,0/ide@d/cdrom@3,0:f File and args: SILO Version 1.4.13 Welcome to Debian GNU/Linux etch! This is a Debian installation CDROM, built on 20080218-14:23. Keep it once you have installed your system, as you can boot from it to repair the system on your hard disk if that ever becomes necessary. WARNING: You should completely back up all of your hard disks before proceeding. The installation procedure can completely and irreversibly erase them! If you haven't made backups yet, remove the rescue CD from the drive and press L1-A to get back to the OpenBoot prompt. Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by applicable law. [ ENTER - Boot install ] [ Type "expert" - Boot into expert mode ] [ Type "rescue" - Boot into rescue mode ] boot: Allocated 8 Megs of memory at 0x40000000 for kernel Loaded kernel version 2.6.18 Loading initial ramdisk (3882238 bytes at 0x6F802000 phys, 0x40C00000 virt)... Illegal Instruction ok I have no idea if I should be able to boot this random CD or not. I also tried a random Solaris 7 CD I had, but again, I don't know if that's actually supposed to work in this machine. It seems clean and tidy inside and passes POST, so it's probably fine. Quite loud though - perhaps better suited to someone with a clabretro style homelab. Sun Netra T1 - circa 1999 The Netra T1 is another rack-mount system. This one doesn't have rails, or a front panel, and the lid is a bit bent. Inside we've got two 3.5" SCSI drives in hot-swap bays. Using the same RJ25 serial LOM connector as the V100, we see: lom> poweron lom> LOM event: power on Checking Sun KB Done %o0 = 0000.0000.0044.4001 Executing Power On SelfTest SPARCengine(tm)Ultra CP 1500 POST 1.17 ME created 03/06/00 Time Stamp [hour:min:sec] 3f:7f:02 Init POST BSS Init System BSS Probing system keyboard␁ : Done DMMU TLB Tags DMMU TLB Tag Access Test DMMU TLB RAM DMMU TLB RAM Access Test Ecache Tests Probe Ecache ecache_size = 0x00200000 Ecache RAM Addr Test Ecache Tag Addr Test Ecache RAM Test Ecache Tag Test Invalidate Ecache Tags All CPU Basic Tests V9 Instruction Test CPU Tick and Tick Compare Reg Test CPU Soft Trap Test CPU Softint Reg and Int Test All Basic MMU Tests DMMU Primary Context Reg Test DMMU Secondary Context Reg Test DMMU TSB Reg Test DMMU Tag Access Reg Test DMMU VA Watchpoint Reg Test DMMU PA Watchpoint Reg Test IMMU TSB Reg Test IMMU Tag Access Reg Test IMMU TLB RAM Access Test IMMU TLB Tag Access Test All Basic Cache Tests Dcache RAM Test Dcache Tag Test Icache RAM Test Icache Tag Test Icache Next Test Icache Predecode Test UltraSPARC IIi MCU Control & Status Regs Init and Tests Init UltraSPARC IIi MCU Control & Status Regs CPU speed : 440 Mhz, mc1 set : 0x544cb9dd Memory Probe and Init Probe Memory INFO: All the memory Group in 10 bit column mode Group 0: 256MB Group 1: 256MB Group 2: 256MB Group 3: 256MB Malloc Post Memory Init Post Memory .......... Memory Addr w/ Ecache Map PROM/STACK/NVRAM in DMMU Load Post In Memory Run POST from MEM .......... loaded POST in memory Update Master Stack/Frame Pointers All FPU Basic Tests FPU Regs Test FPU State Reg Test FPU Functional Test FPU Trap Test Memory Tests Init Memory ............... ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ Memory Addr w/ Ecache Test ECC Memory Addr Test Block Memory Addr Test Block Memory Test ............... ............... ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ ECC Blk Memory Test ............... ............... ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ All Basic UltraSPARC IIi PBM Tests Init UltraSPARC IIi PBM PIO Decoder and BCT Test PCI Byte Enable Test UltraSPARC IIi IOMMU Regs Test UltraSPARC IIi IOMMU RAM NTA Test UltraSPARC IIi IOMMU CAM NTA Test UltraSPARC IIi IOMMU RAM Address Test UltraSPARC IIi IOMMU CAM Address Test IOMMU TLB Compare Test IOMMU TLB Flush Test PBM Control/Status Reg Test PBM Diag Reg Test UltraSPARC IIi PBM Regs Test All Advanced CPU Tests DMMU Hit/Miss Test DMMU Little Endian Test IU ASI Access Test FPU ASI Access Test Ecache Thrash Test All CPU Error Reporting Tests CPU Addr Align Trap Test DMMU Access Priv Page Test DMMU Write Protected Page Test All Advanced UltraSPARC IIi PBM Tests Init UltraSPARC IIi PBM Consist DMA Wr, IOMMU hit Ebus Test All Basic Cheerio Tests Cheerio Ebus PCI Config Space Test Cheerio Ethernet PCI Config Space Test Cheerio Ebus Engine Reg Test Cheerio Init All Basic I2c Tests Init i2c bus Thermister Reading Test Thermister Position Readings (in Hex) CPU 0x6a All Basic PCI-PCI Bridge Tests PCI-PCI Bridge Config Space Test All Basic Symbios 875 SCSI controller Tests Symbios 875 SCSI controller PCI Config Space Test Extended POST: Start Extended POST : No EXT POST is found Power On Selftest Completed Status = 0000.0000.0000.0000 ffff.ffff.f100.1db0 019f.3333.3a50.0011 Software Power ON @(#) SPARCengine(tm)Ultra CP 1500 3.10.27 ME created 2000/06/22 16:45 Enter Checking KB ps/2 kbd check: 0000.0000.0000.00fe␁ Checking Sun KB Clearing E$ Tags Done Clearing I/D TLBs Done Probing Memory Group Info[0000.0000.0000.0003] : 0000.0000.0000.0110 Group Info[0000.0000.0000.0002] : 0000.0000.0000.0110 Group Info[0000.0000.0000.0001] : 0000.0000.0000.0110 Group Info[0000.0000.0000.0000] : 0000.0000.0000.0110 Done Clearing Memory...Done MEM BASE = 0000.0000.3800.0000 MEM SIZE = 0000.0000.0800.0000 MMUs ON Copy Done PC = 0000.01ff.f000.30dc PC = 0000.0000.0000.3120 Decompressing into Memory Done Size = 0000.0000.0008.7710 ttya initialized flashprom flashprom Incorrect configuration checksum; Setting NVRAM parameters to default values. Setting diag-switch? NVRAM parameter to true Reset Control: BXIR:0 BPOR:0 SXIR:0 SPOR:1 POR:0 UltraSPARC-IIi Version 9.1 (E$=2 MB) 2-2 module Advanced PCI Bridge Version 1.3 Probing Memory Group #0 128 + 128 : 256 Megabytes Probing Memory Group #1 128 + 128 : 256 Megabytes Probing Memory Group #2 128 + 128 : 256 Megabytes Probing Memory Group #3 128 + 128 : 256 Megabytes Initialise 2nd I2c controller Environmental monitoring: Enabled i2c adc gpio gpio i2c Probing Floppy: No drives detected Probing /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1 at Device 1 network Probing /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1 at Device 2 scsi disk tape Probing /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1 at Device 3 network Probing /pci@1f,0/pci@1 at Device 1 pci Probing /pci@1f,0/pci@1/pci@1 at Device 0 Nothing there Probing /pci@1f,0/pci@1/pci@1 at Device 1 Nothing there Probing /pci@1f,0/pci@1/pci@1 at Device 2 Nothing there Probing /pci@1f,0/pci@1/pci@1 at Device 3 Nothing there Probing /pci@1f,0/pci@1/pci@1 at Device 4 Nothing there Probing /pci@1f,0/pci@1/pci@1 at Device 5 Nothing there Probing /pci@1f,0/pci@1/pci@1 at Device 6 Nothing there Probing /pci@1f,0/pci@1/pci@1 at Device 7 Nothing there Probing /pci@1f,0/pci@1/pci@1 at Device 8 Nothing there Probing /pci@1f,0/pci@1/pci@1 at Device 9 Nothing there Probing /pci@1f,0/pci@1/pci@1 at Device a Nothing there Probing /pci@1f,0/pci@1/pci@1 at Device b Nothing there Probing /pci@1f,0/pci@1/pci@1 at Device c Nothing there Probing /pci@1f,0/pci@1/pci@1 at Device d Nothing there Probing /pci@1f,0/pci@1/pci@1 at Device e ide disk cdrom Probing /pci@1f,0/pci@1/pci@1 at Device f Nothing there Netra t1 (UltraSPARC-IIi 440MHz), No Keyboard OpenBoot 3.10.27 ME, 1024 MB memory installed, Serial #14254892. Ethernet address 8:0:20:d9:83:2c, Host ID: 80d9832c. Boot device: net File and args: 0 Using External Transceiver - Timeout waiting for AutoNegotiation Status to be updated. Timeout reading Link status. Check cable and try again. Timeout waiting for AutoNegotiation Status to be updated. Timeout reading Link status. Check cable and try again. Timeout waiting for AutoNegotiation Status to be updated. Timeout reading Link status. Check cable and try again. AutoNegotiation Timeout. Check Cable or Contact your System Administrator. Link Down. Evaluating: boot Can't open boot device ok Wow, the POST has a lot to say for itself - so much more than the later V100. It appears we have a 440 MHz UltraSPARC-IIi with 1024 MiB of RAM. Let's look at those two SCSI hard disk drives: ok probe-scsi Primary UltraSCSI bus: Target 1 Unit 0 Disk FUJITSU MAN3184M SUN18G 1804 OK, well it sees one of them. Unlike the V100 this one has a high-density 68-pin SCSI connector on the back instead of a CD-ROM drive, so I could probably boot it from a BlueSCSI. We also have a Seagate drive fitted, but it doesn't appear to be detected. Given my experience with Seagate SCSI drives, this does not surprise me. We cannot boot the Fujitsu drive - I suspect it has been wiped: ok boot disk Boot device: /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/scsi@2/disk@0,0 File and args: Unrecognized magic number in media label Can't open disk label package Can't open boot device SPARCstation 1 We have a single SPARCstation 1. It looks OK inside, with on Maxtor hard disk. Applying mains power gives no results though - and checking the rails, there's only 1.5V on the +12V rail. That means no fans and no RS-232 drivers. I opened the PSU and it didn't look too bad inside - no obvious bulging or leaking. Note to the unwary - DO NOT REMOVE THE SCREWS ON THE SIDE. They hold on the transistor heatinks and are a right faff to refit. Simply ask your qualified electrical engineer to remove the small black machine screw at the end, and slide off the bottom cover towards the screw. The fan can remain in place. CSFB SPARCstation2 This is one of two SPARCstation 2 units - the one stickered as belonging to Credit Suisse. Applying power and we have success - it does a POST over Serial Port A. The hard drives spin up but the bearings sound horrific. I highly doubt they are usable. It also takes forever to check the RAM. Also I think the disk is blank. But, it's got power! Annoying these early machines have DB25F ports and I only have a DB25F cable. So ... This works, don't judge me. Here's the console output on boot: WARNING: Unable to determine keyboard type WARNING: TOD Oscillator NOT Running, Kickstart in Progress ... Incorrect configuration checksum; Setting NVRAM parameters to default values. Setting diag-switch? NVRAM parameter to true Probing /sbus@1,f8000000 at 0,0 dma esp sd st le Probing /sbus@1,f8000000 at 1,0 Nothing there Probing /sbus@1,f8000000 at 2,0 Nothing there Probing /sbus@1,f8000000 at 3,0 Nothing there screen not found. Can't open input device. SPARCstation 2, No Keyboard ROM Rev. 2.4.1, 64 MB memory installed, Serial #16777215. Ethernet address ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff, Host ID: ffffffff. The IDPROM contents are invalid Testing 64 megs of memory. Still to go 0 SBus slot 0 le esp dma SBus slot 1 SBus slot 2 SBus slot 3 Boot device: /sbus/le@0,c00000 File and args: Internal loopback test -- Did not receive expected loopback packet. Can't open boot device Type b (boot), c (continue), or n (new command mode) >n Type help for more information ok Can we see our two disks? ok boot disk Boot device: /sbus/esp@0,800000/sd@3,0 File and args: bootblk: can't find the boot program Program terminated ok probe-scsi Target 3 Unit 0 Disk SEAGATE ST31200N SUN1.05872200534577 Copyright (c) 1994 Seagate All rights reserved 0000 Target 4 Unit 0 Disk SEAGATE ST11200N 930000053770 Copyright (c) 1993 Seagate All rights reserved 0000 ok We can. Let's set up the NVRAM and try and boot it. Type 0x55 is correct for a SPARCstation 2. ok 01 00 mkp ok 55 1 mkp ok 08 02 mkp ok 00 03 mkp ok 20 04 mkp ok c0 05 mkp ok ff 06 mkp ok ee 07 mkp ok 00 08 mkp ok 00 09 mkp ok 00 0a mkp ok 00 0b mkp ok c0 0c mkp ok ff 0d mkp ok ee 0e mkp ok 0 f 0 do i idprom@ xor loop f mkp ok boot disk Boot device: /sbus/esp@0,800000/sd@3,0 File and args: bootblk: can't find the boot program Program terminated Let's try the other disk. ok boot /sbus/esp@0,800000/sd@4,0 Setting Segment Map Setting RAM Parity Mode Mode set to 36-bit Sizing Memory Mapping ROM Mapping RAM Probing /sbus@1,f8000000 at 0,0 dma␀ esp␀ sd␀ st␀ le␀ Probing /sbus@1,f8000000 at 1,0 Nothing there Probing /sbus@1,f8000000 at 2,0 Nothing there Probing /sbus@1,f8000000 at 3,0 Nothing there screen not found. Can't open input device. SPARCstation 2, No Keyboard ROM Rev. 2.4.1, 64 MB memory installed, Serial #12648430. Ethernet address 8:0:20:c0:ff:ee, Host ID: 55c0ffee. Rebooting with command: /sbus/esp@0,800000/sd@4,0 Boot device: /sbus/esp@0,800000/sd@4,0 File and args: root on /sbus/esp@0,800000/sd@4,0 fstype 4.2 Boot: vmunix Size: 1359872+427120+140304 bytes Instruction Access Exception Type help for more information ok So close! Let's try Solaris 7 from an external BlueSCSI. At this point I typed reset and then had to wait another 15 minutes for the memory test to complete. ok boot cdrom Boot device: /sbus/esp@0,800000/sd@6,0:c File and args: SunOS Release 5.7 Version Generic_106541-08 [UNIX(R) System V Release 4.0] Copyright (c) 1983-1999, Sun Microsystems, Inc. WARNING: Time-of-day chip had incorrect date; check and reset. Configuring /dev and /devices le0: No carrier - transceiver cable problem? le0: No carrier - transceiver cable problem? le0: No carrier - transceiver cable problem? le0: No carrier - transceiver cable problem? le0: No carrier - transceiver cable problem? The system is coming up. Please wait. Select a Language 0) English 1) German 2) Spanish 3) French 4) Italian 5) Swedish ? Yeah! MORSE SPARCstation 2 The second SPARCstation 2 has a MORSE sticker on it. I have no idea what that is. It also has a wonky foot that seems to have come off and been stuck back on at 45 degrees. This one also starts up. It has 32 MiB of RAM so POST merely takes an age as opposed to eons. WARNING: Unable to determine keyboard type WARNING: TOD Oscillator NOT Running, Kickstart in Progress ... Incorrect c onfiguration checksum; Setting NVRAM parameters to default values. Setting diag-switch? NVRAM parameter to true Probing /sbus@1,f8000000 at 0,0 dma esp sd st le Probing /sbus@1,f8000000 at 1,0 Nothing there Probing /sbus@1,f8000000 at 2,0 le Probing /sbus@1,f8000000 at 3,0 Nothing there screen not found. Can't open input device. SPARCstation 2, No Keyboard ROM Rev. 2.4.1, 32 MB memory installed, Serial #16777215. Ethernet address ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff, Host ID: ffffffff. The IDPROM contents are invalid Testing 32 megs of memory. Still to go 0 Type b (boot), c (continue), or n (new command mode) >n Type help for more information The NVRAM set-up is as before. Do the disks appear? They are very quiet. ok probe-scsi Target 1 Unit 0 Disk SEAGATE ST11200N SUN1.05950000000000Copyright (c) 1993 Seagate All rights reserved 0000 Target 3 Unit 0 Disk MAXTOR LXT-535S 8.74 ok boot disk Boot device: /sbus/esp@0,800000/sd@3,0 File and args: That just hangs - I guess the disks are no good. But it boots from BlueSCSI: ok boot cdrom Boot device: /sbus/esp@0,800000/sd@6,0:c File and args: SunOS Release 5.7 Version Generic_106541-08 [UNIX(R) System V Release 4.0] Copyright (c) 1983-1999, Sun Microsystems, Inc. Excellent. That's enough for now. Wrapping up OK, I've got an SS10, two SS5s and three SS20s left to try - and the SS20s are missing CPU cards and RAM. Lets look at those next time. Edit: The fun continues