[9fans] sparc hardware available in the UK (probably)

[9fans] sparc hardware available in the UK (probably)

[steve-simon]

Hi,

I too would love to see Plan9 Sparc port reborn - I always
had a soft spot for sparcs.

There is a good chance I will have a sparc10 today and will
donate it to anyone who wants to have a go. If not
it will live in my loft until i get around to it or
I move house...

I am in Winchester in the UK.

-Steve

Re: [9fans] sparc hardware available in the UK (probably)

[ron minnich]

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 steve-simon@ntlworld.nospam.com wrote:

> I too would love to see Plan9 Sparc port reborn - I always had a soft
> spot for sparcs.

Me too, but let's face it, it's dead.

> There is a good chance I will have a sparc10 today and will donate it to
> anyone who wants to have a go. If not it will live in my loft until i
> get around to it or I move house...

I still think the effort that would go into this is way better spent on
the K8. Even sun is starting to admit that SPARC is history.

ron

Re: [9fans] sparc hardware available in the UK (probably)

[a]

// ...let's face it, it's dead.

the plan 9 port is dead, and sparc has no future (but isn't
actually cold *quite* yet). still, it was fun while it lasted,
and i've still got a box or two lying around.

and i agree the effort would be better spent elsewhere (hmm...
Mac port? ssh2? plenty of large-effort projects), but i would
not complain too loudly if a port turned up.
ア

Re: [9fans] sparc hardware available in the UK (probably)

[Christopher Nielsen]

On Fri, Oct 17, 2003 at 07:30:38AM -0600, ron minnich wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 steve-simon@ntlworld.nospam.com wrote:
>
> > I too would love to see Plan9 Sparc port reborn - I always had a soft
> > spot for sparcs.
>
> Me too, but let's face it, it's dead.
>
> > There is a good chance I will have a sparc10 today and will donate it to
> > anyone who wants to have a go. If not it will live in my loft until i
> > get around to it or I move house...
>
> I still think the effort that would go into this is way better spent on
> the K8. Even sun is starting to admit that SPARC is history.

I have a quad processor SPARC 20 that I was going to use to
revive the SPARC port, but my most recent feelings are the
same as ron's. As much as I loved it, SPARC is dead.

Along the same lines, Alpha is dead (and rotting), too.
All the world's an x86 or PowerPC.
Not including embedded devices. ;)

--
Christopher Nielsen
"They who can give up essential liberty for temporary
safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin

Re: [9fans] sparc hardware available in the UK (probably)

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

Christopher Nielsen wrote:
> ... As much as I loved it, SPARC is dead.
> ...
> All the world's an x86 or PowerPC.

Which is most unfortunate, as the x86's ISA really sucks.

But I think perhaps Plan 9 ought to take a different approach.
You guys are not able to keep up with the PC hardware wave front,
making it necessary to configure "obsolete" equipment in order
to run Plan 9; I know that the availability of Plan 9 support
for graphics cards has affected how I have built my own PCs.
Given that this is necessarily the case, what is so wrong
about continuting the multi-platform tradition that Plan 9
started with?  There are plenty of MIPS and SPARC boxes on the
used equipment market, e.g. eBay, selling for peanuts compared
to modern PCs.  Heck, many people still build and operate
PDP-11 systems (not that I expect a Plan 9 port to the PDP-11).
Is there some pressing reason why you have to give in to the
continual pressure to upgrade to the latest PC gizmos?  Plan 9
doesn't use nor need most of the capabilities of the latest PCs.

Re: [9fans] sparc hardware available in the UK (probably)

[a]

my issue with the "why bother with new stuff?" isn't that i need
all the whiz-bang features of the newer devices, but rather that
it quicly becomes dificult to find older components, particularly
in any quantity or on any tight schedule. i've spent weeks in the
past looking for supported video or sound cards (i've not had
such a problem with ethernet; we may not support many, but the
ones we do are fairly common), and probably longer once or twice
looking for a supported scsi card. ^[[B^[[Bas the manufacturers move on
to newer and fancier things, the older models get EOL'd and
binned.

and then there are one or two things i do care about from newer
systems: most notably support for large quantities of fast RAM.
preferably the comodoty varieties i can buy cheaply. i can get a
perfectly fine Sparc 20 cheap enough, which is plenty fast
enough for what i need (with processor speeds these days, the
idea of cheap-dumb-terminal and super-fast cpu server seems to
have fallen by the wayside), but getting the gig of ram i want
for my mail server (upas/fs isn't exactly the most memory
efficient mailer in the world) is a sight tougher.
ア