Sun E3500; Sun FFB EDID; Tom Petty Live DVD;
My Sun Enterprise 3500 (E3500) is now full! I bought another (slightly battered) one from Ebay and used it for spares. Mine now contains 8 400MHz processors and 12GB of memory (see component list). It's tempting to put some more memory in, but the 2GB kits are still quite expensive. The NetBSD/sparc64 port doesn't yet have drivers for the clock board, nor the fibre-channel controller on the I/O boards, so that's something to work on. Now, what about an E4500 to hold those spare boards?
I managed to get the FFB (Creator 3D: 501-4788) and AFB (Elite 3D-M6: 501-5058) cards in my Sun Blade 2000, and the FFB (Creator3D: 501-4790) card in my E3500 to read EDID data from monitors today! Thanks are due to Michael Lorenz and Jared McNeill for encouragement and ideas. The trick (as hinted at in the Brooktree BT497 manual and the X sunffb driver) is to blank the video while driving the I2C bus. There is still a slight problem, maybe timing-related, in that I can't always read the data from one of the monitors - a Sun 19" LCD, whereas reading from a Samsung Syncmaster 245T never fails.
In the process of testing, I discovered that not all 13W3 to VGA adapters are the same. I tested with a Sun 130-3034 (13W3-M/HD15-F) adapter plus a VGA cable, and also with Sun 530-2917 and 530-2357 (13W3-F/HD15-M) adapters plus a 13W3 cable. I can read the EDID data from the Sun 19" LCD with the 130-3034 and 530-2917 adapters, but not with the 530-2357 adapter. All three adapters work with the Samsung Syncmaster 245T (again). Checking the pinouts revealed that the 530-2357 adapter doesn't connect VGA pin 9 to 13W3 pin 2, but the others do. This pin supplies +5V DC to power the monitor EEPROM, even when the monitor is powered off.
Next steps are to check the FFB framebuffer version and calculate and program the best graphics mode. It seems to be possible to program the cards to support arbitrary modes, but not all cards are capable of higher resolutions - the Elite 3D cards have a maximum resolution of 1280x1024, and earlier Creator cards have less memory, so limiting their resolutions too.
Recent music purchase:
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Live DVD - the July 2003 concert at
WTTW's Soundstage.
Tracks include classics such as Refugee, blues songs like
Red Rooster and covers like J. J. Cale's Thirteen Days.
Also included are bonus tracks from other other recordings. A very
nicely shot and recorded disc, with excellent audio and video quality.
Track listing:
Baby Please Don't Go
Crawlin' Back To You
Handle With Care
I Won't Back Down
I'm Cryin'
Angel Dream
Melinda
Born In Chicago
Red Rooster
Carol
Refugee
Love Is A Long Road
You Don't Know How It Feels
Black Leather Woman
Done Somebody Wrong
I Got A Woman
Thirteen Days
Wake Up Time
Rollin' In My Sweet Baby's Arms
Lost Children
Two Men Talkin'
You Wreck Me
I'd Like To Love You Baby (bonus track)
Not Fade Away (bonus track)
Walls (bonus track)
Yer So Bad (bonus track)
Billy The Kid (bonus track)
Like A Diamond (live at The Olympic)
Can't Stop The Sun (live at The Olympic)
Disks | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
3 x | X6724A | 540-4525 | 36.4GB - 10000 RPM FC-AL, Disk Assembly | |
390-0070 | Seagate ST336605FC [ST336605FSUN36G] (36.4GB - 10000 RPM - FC-AL Disk) | |||
Fibre Channel | ||||
X2652A | 501-5144 | FC-AL Interface Board Kit | ||
3 x | X6731A | 370-2303 | FC-AL SW-GBIC Module | |
I/O | ||||
X2622A | 501-4884 | Graphics I/O Board with SOC+ | (slot 1) | |
2 x | X6731A | 370-2303 | FC-AL SW-GBIC Module | |
X1140A | 501-4375 | Gigabit Ethernet SBus (GBE/S) 2.0 | ||
X3671A | 501-4790 | Creator3D Series 3 (FFB2+) 24-Bit Frame Buffer | ||
X1018A | 501-2739 | Single-Ended Fast/Wide SCSI/FastEthernet (SunSwift/S) | ||
Power | ||||
n/a | 300-1307 | FDK PEX705-40 184 Watt Peripheral Power Supply (Type A109) Rear Unit | ||
n/a | 300-1358 | FDK PEX750-30 195 Watt Peripheral Power Supply (Type A129) Front Unit | ||
n/a | 300-1260 | FDK PEX690-31 300 Watt Power/Cooling Module (Type A146) | ||
2 x | n/a | 300-1444 | FDK PEX690-31 300 Watt Power/Cooling Module (Type A146) | |
Removable Media | ||||
X6168A | 390-0025 | 10X DVD-ROM Drive | ||
System Board | ||||
X2602A | 501-4882 | Memory Board, 83/90/100MHz Gigaplane | (slot 3) | |
2 x | X2580A | 501-6009 | 400MHz UltraSPARC II Module | |
2 x | X7026A | 501-5658 | 256MB DIMM x 8 | |
X2602A | 501-4882 | Memory Board, 83/90/100MHz Gigaplane | (slot 5) | |
2 x | X2580A | 501-6009 | 400MHz UltraSPARC II Module | |
2 x | X7026A | 501-5658 | 256MB DIMM x 8 | |
X2602A | 501-4882 | Memory Board, 83/90/100MHz Gigaplane | (slot 7) | |
X2580A | 501-6624 | 400MHz UltraSPARC II Module | ||
X2580A | 501-6619 | 400MHz UltraSPARC II Module | ||
2 x | X7026A | 501-2654 | 128MB DIMM x 8 | |
X2602A | 501-4882 | Memory Board, 83/90/100MHz Gigaplane | (slot 9) | |
2 x | X2580A | 501-6009 | 400MHz UltraSPARC II Module | |
2 x | X7026A | 501-2654 | 128MB DIMM x 8 | |
n/a | 501-4946 | Clock Board - 83/90/100MHz Gigaplane (1:2, 1:3, 1:4 clock ratios) |
-^- More notes -^-