Sun Microsystems SPARCStation 20 (SS20) internals

This was my workstation for almost 5 years (2001 - 2005). It's still in service today as an NIS / NFS server for a small sun cluster that supports radar astronomy for NASA/JPL. It currently runs Solaris 7. 200mhz ROSS SUPERSparc CPU upgrade with 128mb of RAM and 8MB for the framebuffer (video). Originally manufactured in 1995. Famous for it's "pizza box" form factor, these computers were quite advanced for their time and a real pleasure to code on. I especially loved the keyboards that came with these. Linux, however, along with cheap and fast x86 hardware would soon became the workstation of choice. Today I use a fast MacBook Pro as a workstation, along with a cheap Dell tower running Ubuntu. Linux (CentOS or Ubunto) is the best option these days for a proper UNIX like workstation.

This was filmed on my iPhone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARCstation_20

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Sun
• SPARCStation
• sparc
• Computer
• Unix
• Solaris
• Microsystems
• SS20
• iphone
• UNIX
• SCSI
• SCA
• bus
• ubuntu
• redhat
• fedora
• centos

[cnoyes72]

This isn't a Sparcstation 20; it's a sparcstation 10. The 20's hard drives were SCA (and stacked in caddy's to the right side of the machine opposite the CDROM and floppy drive. The sparc station 10 used regular 50pin SCSI, drives mounted side-by-side (using little plastic nubs to mount them in the chassis). Normally the sparcstation 10 could use Ross Hypersparc modules, unless the system ROM was replaced. The 10 is a nice little machine, powerful in it's day (I still have one).

[stephanowartooth]

I'm curious, which kind of work you did in this machine?

[qopha]

It doesn't look quite like the SS20 I remember... The SCA HDs were in a different position, and fans were inside the power supply case to begin with.

Is that an older SS20 version, I wonder?

Those SS20 were cute machines, but they overheated too easily.

[cusbrar1]

That would be a Ross HyperSparc .... also you might wanna look into upgrading the ram upto 512Mb (16Mb vs 64Mb dsimm) you could probably get someone to send you some at shipping cost......

How hot does that 200mhz ross get?

I have 2 SS10's that I am restoring ... my first real experience with non x86 actually.