We can’t throw stones. [Leaded Solder] picked up a SparcStation 1+ in 2018 and found it only produced illegal instruction errors. We’re sure he’s like us and meant to get back to it, and, instead, it sat on the bench, taking up space. You eventually have to move it, though, so seven years later, it was time for another go at it.
The first pass back in 2018 revealed that the machine had an interesting life. The full-sized hard drive was salvaged from an Apple computer. Removing the drive resolved the illegal instruction error. The drive seemed to work, but there was still nothing that suggested the machine would fully boot up. The next step was to try booting from a floppy, but that didn’t work either. The floppy cable had been surgically altered, again hinting this machine had seen some tough love.
Fast forward to 2025. This time, a Pi Pico-based SCSI emulator would stand in for the aging and suspect hard drive. Unfortunately, as noted, this machine has undergone some extensive and strange surgery. The power cable feeding the emulator had been rewired backwards, exposing the poor Pi Pico to 12 V, with predictable results. Luckily, it didn’t seem to phase the SparcStation.
The machine has some hard-to find micro fuses and one that powers the SCSI bus was blown. You could wonder if the SCSI emulator blew the fuse, but it appears it didn’t. Pulling the Ethernet fuse and placing it in the SCSI slot improved the machine’s behavior. But the termination power was still a problem. A USB cable temporarily solved that and, in fact, got the machine a little bit further.
That’s as far as he got this time. We’d imagine if you know a lot about this computer and have ideas on how to solve some of the remaining problems [Leaded Solder] would be glad to hear from you. But take your time. We estimate you have at least a few years.
There was a time when every geek wanted a Sun computer. Of course, if this is too much work for you, there’s always emulation.
Put the Ethernet fuse back and use net boot?
Hi, that’s an idea. It seems to use an AUI port, so it needs an adapter to 10Base-T these days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARCstation_1#Network_support
My SGI needed the same thing. Check eBay. they were quite plentiful so should be fairly cheap.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/306266550201
I resurrected an SGI Indigo. Root password unknown, and it’s surprisingly hard to reset it. I ended up being lucky — some demo usernames were still on the system, no password required, so I dumped /etc/passwd and used a cracker to get the root password (remember, this OLD Unix)…right about the time our system manager came up with it :-) It was originally a mechanical CAD system, long since superseded by Windows and SolidWorks.
I bought another SCSI HDD off eBay to preserve the original one, and found CD images for the OS, which I installed over the network…after I had arranged the keyboard, mouse, video and network adapters. Thank goodness for tftp. It’s a neat little retro system, and as far as I can tell, the demos are all there.
It runs, but for some reason, SGI made the C compiler and extra cost, licensed option. Ugh. I have a copy of the licensed compiler but it uses network licensing and a license server, which I have not set up. GCC will supposedly work, but that would mean a non-standard system, and I’d rather have it as original as possible.
Googled and my GOD! The prices are insane. I think I paid like $15 for mine. Check the surplus places and ask around. Cheapest I saw was $40, which seems outrageous. These things were ubiquitous when 10BASE-T replaced the old thickwire.
I was a sys admin for a resonably large SUN installation. I have at least a IPC and SLC motherboard. Sadly i did not have room for my sun 2/120 to take home
I have probably one or 2 sparkstations in the attic.
SCSI cd player and some other stuff 😀
Like a vme card controller for a tape station.
The first Sun I used was a sun 1 one of the 3 brought to sweden by Ericsson technical director.
I was part of the team that tried out PERC, Apollo, HP and Sun work stations for programmer work stations.