Sun 4/470 & Sun 4/260


In August of 1998 I went to visit a local internet provider, to have a look at thier computer set up.
While there, I discovered a couple of big machines being used at table legs, and another just sitting out in the open. I asked what could I do to acquire these - they told me all I had to do was to buy them a table, and I could have both machines!
So I did - and they also gave me an extra machine that they found in the elevator... Which brings my count to three whole machines, of six cabinets - two Sun 4/260 servers and a Sun 4/470 server.

During April 2000 I visited a Wellington company called Eagle Technology Group, and prised from them a scrap (But working) 4/470 for 4 dozen beer. This now brings my total to 4.

Sun 4/260
Quoted from 'The Sun Hardware Reference', James Birdsall:
Processor(s): SF9010 @ 16.67MHz, Weitek 1164/1165, Sun-4 MMU, 16 hardware contexts, 10 MIPS, 1.6 MFLOPS
CPU: 501-1274/1491/1522
Bus: VME, 12 slot
Memory: 128M physical with ECC, 1G/process virtual, 60ns cycle
Architecture: sun4
Notes: First SPARC machine. Code-named "Sunrise". Cache much like Sun-3/2xx, uses same memory boards.

Currently I have one of my two 4/260s booting, the second machine has had two rather large chips removed from it totally (One is an FPU, not sure about the other).
My current predicament is that I can't get the machine booting off its SMD drives.

Sun 4/470
Quoted from 'The Sun Hardware Reference', James Birdsall:
Processor(s): CY7C601 @ 33MHz, TI8847 (?), 64 hardware contexts, 22 MIPS, 3.8 MFLOPS, 17.6 SPECmark89
CPU: 501-1381/1899
Bus: VME
Memory: 96M physical, 128K cache
Architecture: sun4
Notes: Write-back rather than write-through cache 3-level rather than 2-level Sun-style MMU. Code-name "Sunray" (which was also the code name for the 7C601 CPU).
Screen capture of Shemal

The original CPU board in the first 4/470 was definately on its way out when I first started booting it up. I bought another CPU card in the US in Feburary of '99, and now the machine works top-notch. (Well, okay, if you don't boot it at least once a week, you get a BAD TRAP error, but hey, its an oldish machine).
This machine has two internal 1.3G SCSI drives, and two external 911M IPI2 drives... And my problem with this machine is that I can't get into the SunOS! The machine is still passworded up, and I don't know any passwords :)
The second machine is accessable and works! I've put the two machines together to make one, with 128 Megs of RAM.
Both machines are running a custom modified version of SunOS 3.1.4_GENERIC.

Photos of my Suns:
4/260, front
4/260, back
4/470, front
4/470, back
4/470, CPU card
4/470, rear of CPU cabinet
Sun junk in Christchurch Hangar
Both 4/470s lined up
The new, packed, 4/470 from the back

Sounds of my Suns:
A MP3 of one of the HDDs spinning up