Query failed: connection to localhost:9312 failed (errno=111, msg=Connection refused). At it again (old computer restoring) - Off Topic Discussions on The Fretboard
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UNPLANNED DOWNTIME: 12th Oct 23:45

At it again (old computer restoring)

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JalapenoJalapeno Frets: 6284
edited September 2023 in Off Topic
For my own amusement, and unrelated to The National Museum of Computing where I volunteer.

I got hold of an old Sun IPX workstation, I'll be keeping a blog going as I get it going. Amazingly for a 40year old computer the disc still works (noisily), but I plan to max out the memory and replace the disc with a zuluSCSI SD card drive.

They're a neat lunchbox design, rather than the mahoosive pizza box models that replaced it



Imagine something sharp and witty here ......

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  • guitartangoguitartango Frets: 954
    Jalapeno said:
    For my own amusement, and unrelated to The National Museum of Computing where I volunteer.

    I got hold of an old Sun IPX workstation, I'll be keeping a blog going as I get it going. Amazingly for a 40year old computer the disc still works (noisily), but I plan to max out the memory and replace the disc with a zuluSCSI SD card drive.

    They're a neat lunchbox design, rather than the mahoosive pizza box models that replaced it



    Nice, I have to pop over to MK sometime, we have 2 old Sun Servers ( and last year scrapped some really old Risc Computers) 
    “Ken sent me.”
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  • JalapenoJalapeno Frets: 6284
    Please do, always willing to take Sun stuff. We've a lot of SparcStations, not so much Ultras or servers.
    Imagine something sharp and witty here ......

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  • thermionicthermionic Frets: 8909
    Used a few of those when I was designing silicon chips in university departments in the 90s. I remember a disk dying in one of them, it made a painful whining noise that rapidly got louder and higher pitched, we were expecting to be showered in magnetic shards any second.
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  • paulcayepaulcaye Frets: 58
    Wow, I haven't seen one of those in a while.  Good luck with the restoration. 
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  • oafoaf Frets: 293

    Excellent! I am very fond of old Sun gear... and guess what I used to type out this post :)

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  • JalapenoJalapeno Frets: 6284
    Awesome !
    Imagine something sharp and witty here ......

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  • mudslide73mudslide73 Frets: 2921
    Your museum is a great place @Jalapeno. I took my lad but he was a bit young at the time to understand everything. The story of Tommy Flowers et al really resonated and made me quite emotional on the day.. some great kit on display too.
    "A city star won’t shine too far"


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  • JalapenoJalapeno Frets: 6284
    Ta. (Wish it was "mine" ;) )
    Imagine something sharp and witty here ......

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  • strumjoughlampsstrumjoughlamps Frets: 3067
    Of you're ever in the Shire of Gloucester then this is well worth a visit, retro computing/gaming upstairs, Arcades downstairs.. set in a lovely old mill they really have created a place worth the visit.

    https://www.retrocollective.co.uk/index.php
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  • JalapenoJalapeno Frets: 6284
    We've got loads of retro games here as well
    Imagine something sharp and witty here ......

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  • KittyfriskKittyfrisk Frets: 16332
    Jalapeno said:
    Ta. (Wish it was "mine" ;) )
    If you are a good boy, work very hard & save all your pocket money, then I'm sure that one day it will be yours  :3
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  • strumjoughlampsstrumjoughlamps Frets: 3067
    Jalapeno said:
    We've got loads of retro games here as well
    It does look interesting,  and I have a golf and spa weekend at Woburn in November so might see if we have time.

    I am currently refurbing an Atari STfm, I love tinkering 
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  • StuckfastStuckfast Frets: 2124
    Do the computer museums do any oral history stuff? My Dad started working in computers in 1961 or thereabouts. He would have a few tales to tell. The museum in Cambridge is great but has very little from the early days of business computing, I don't know how much of that tech survives elsewhere.
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  • strumjoughlampsstrumjoughlamps Frets: 3067
    edited September 2023
    Stuckfast said:
    Do the computer museums do any oral history stuff? My Dad started working in computers in 1961 or thereabouts. He would have a few tales to tell. The museum in Cambridge is great but has very little from the early days of business computing, I don't know how much of that tech survives elsewhere.
    RMC have guest speaker events that they then put on YouTube 


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  • Axe_meisterAxe_meister Frets: 4451
    The first Proper servers I worked on where Sun. 4 Socket, (one core per socket) running at 50Mhz, with 128MB of memory, running SAP for about 100 odd users. They always has the best graphical UI compared to HP or IBM servers at the time and great workstation screens.
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  • JalapenoJalapeno Frets: 6284
    The first Proper servers I worked on where Sun. 4 Socket, (one core per socket) running at 50Mhz, with 128MB of memory, running SAP for about 100 odd users. They always has the best graphical UI compared to HP or IBM servers at the time and great workstation screens.
    Interesting the original "Open Windows" from SunOs days doesn't have a lot of love, later Solaris CDE (Commonn Desktop Environment) is a lot easier to use and effectively ended the desire for people to buy Motif window manager.

    If I don't run out of enthusiasm I plan to be able to swap SunOs 4.1.4, Solaris 2.5 NetBSD Sparc and possibly Nextstep (just because you can ;) ! ).

    Imagine something sharp and witty here ......

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  • guitartangoguitartango Frets: 954
    Jalapeno said:
    Please do, always willing to take Sun stuff. We've a lot of SparcStations, not so much Ultras or servers.
    Think they are SUNW,UltraSPARC-IIi , one had not been rebooted for 8 yrs !!!!!
    “Ken sent me.”
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