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dion_b
Guest
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 Posted: Sat May 19, 2007 11:23 pm Post subject: SS Classic SCSI vs FB dilemma |
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Thanks to a former Sun systems operator giving away his old stuff rather
than binning it I have recently obtained a large pile of early 1990s Sun
stuff. I had been looking for Solaris 2.6 and a machine to run it on for
a while now. I now have two Sparcstation Classic lunchboxen and Solaris
2.6 Server (full pack including manuals and install media) to play with.
Why?
In a mixed Sun stuff box I bought on eBay for some UltraSparc II CPUs
(to upgrade my Ultra2) I found a SunPC Sbus card. At the time I thought
of trying it in my Ultra2, but found that unlike with the old SunPCI I
card that could be hacked all the way up to Solaris 10, nobody had
gotten the SunPC working on anything more recent than Solaris 2.6. As my
U2 is happily running Solaris 10 - and even though it can theoretically
run 2.6 - I'm not going to subject it to that.
So here comes the freebie Classic. It's a little beauty, mem maxed and
case not even too yellow  - but my problem is: only 2 SBus slots.
Seeing as I want to play with the SunPC card, one SBus slot is taken by
that. The question is as to what to do with the second slot. I have both
a TurboGX card and a W-SCSI/100Mbit Ethernet card. Question is which to
use...
Quick aside: this system will not be used seriously, apart from playing
with the SunPC, it will be used as SSH client for my 'big' boxes (Ultra2
and x86 stuff) - just like most of the other legacy stuff here. 10Mb/s
network is fine for that, so the question is really just about W-SCSI vs
TGX.
As I understand, the big difference between the onboard CG3 and the TGX
is the refresh rate they support. As for the difference between the
onboard SCSI and the SunSwift 501-2739 card, well, that's 20MB/s vs
10MB/s for the onboard. The question is - given my rather lightweight
usage, which would be the better choice - better HDD speed or higher FB
refresh rates. Given the slow uS 50MHz CPU my instinct says to go for
the TGX. On the other hand, the old Nokia X449A 15" monitor might not be
able to do justice to the difference between the CG3 and the TGX - and
no way is this box kicking my dual P3 system off my Sony W900 (=Sun
GDM-90W11) :P
So, which would you suggest, TGX or SunSwift - and why? |
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Ahmed Ewing
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 1:45 am Post subject: Re: SS Classic SCSI vs FB dilemma |
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On May 19, 2:23 pm, dion_b <dio...@nospam.no> wrote:
| Quote: | Quick aside: this system will not be used seriously, apart from playing
with the SunPC, it will be used as SSH client for my 'big' boxes (Ultra2
and x86 stuff) - just like most of the other legacy stuff here. 10Mb/s
network is fine for that, so the question is really just about W-SCSI vs
TGX.
As I understand, the big difference between the onboard CG3 and the TGX
is the refresh rate they support. As for the difference between the
onboard SCSI and the SunSwift 501-2739 card, well, that's 20MB/s vs
10MB/s for the onboard. The question is - given my rather lightweight
usage, which would be the better choice - better HDD speed or higher FB
refresh rates. Given the slow uS 50MHz CPU my instinct says to go for
the TGX. On the other hand, the old Nokia X449A 15" monitor might not be
able to do justice to the difference between the CG3 and the TGX - and
no way is this box kicking my dual P3 system off my Sony W900 (=Sun
GDM-90W11) :P
So, which would you suggest, TGX or SunSwift - and why?
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If hme connectivity is not a deal-breaker, personally I'd go with the
TGX. The CG3 is a completely unaccelerated framebuffer, so you could
see a performance hit with a busy desktop over the accelerated CG6,
particularly given the Classic's lower-speed microSPARC.
Besides, taking advantage of the 20mb/s SCSI would require you to use
an external root disk for the Classic, which can match stylewise if
you stack it with a 411 enclosure, but IMO still defeats the simple
elegance of the compact, self-contained lunchbox chassis (especially
if you already have an external CD-ROM).
Hope that helps,
-A |
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