[Gllug] Hardware giveaway!

[Richard Jones]

On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 09:37:49PM +0100, John Edwards wrote:
> The SparcStation and Ultra1 machines will almost certainly use a
> graphics card with 13W3 instead of VGA (if they have a graphics
> card at all).
>
> If you don't want the expensive or space of a CRT monitor, then
> for a basic console you can use a serial cable instead.

Exactly - the great thing about Suns is they have a *usable* serial
console, something which PeeCees still don't really do right (although
the 1U server I bought in 2006 has a mostly serviceable serial BIOS).

> Though
> there used to be a bug where disconnecting the serial cable caused
> a BREAK signal which stopped the OS and switched the machine into
> PROM mode (equivalent of the BIOS in a PC):
> 	http://www.obsolyte.com/sunFAQ/serial/

Interesting stuff, thanks.

Now I'll have to get my SparcStation 20 working again.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones
Red Hat
-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at gllug.org.uk
http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug