[Gllug] Re: (OT) Sparcs Was: SGI Machines

[Jon Masters]

On Mon, 18 Aug 2003, Mark Hazell wrote:

> Which did you get, and for what purposes, if you don't mind me asking?
> Also, are they loud things, or pretty silent in use?

For what it is worth I currently own 7 SPARCs of various vintage.
Including 2xIPC, 1xIPX, 1xSS2, 2xSS5, 1xSS20.

The SPARC5 is pretty quiet but it has a lot to do with the disks in use.
Recently I upgraded one of mine to Solaris 9 and had to add a second hard
disk which is whiney and is going to need replacing when the disk I got
on ebay yesterday arrives.

> I was mainly looking at the SunSparc 20 (don't need the ISDN of the
> SS10) as they seem the smallest of the machines, but I'm not sure what
> services it can really be used for.

A reasonable machine for fun. The MBUS allows two HyperSPARC or whatever
to be added but remember that Solaris is only "free" for single CPU.
Of course I do run Linux on a couple of them but the reason I have them is
for tinkering and soon installing Amoeba on - which is why I need more.

> What do you think would be its speed equivalent in the PC world?

The SS5 compares with a good 486/low Pentium but is much more responsive.

Jon.


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