Sun E3500; Sun FFB EDID; Tom Petty Live DVD;


Sun E3500

From left to right: Sun Enterprise 3500; Sun Blade 2000; Sun 4/630 (in 4/330 case)

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?


Sun FFB EDID

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.


Tom Petty Live DVD

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)


Sun E3500 component list

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)

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