From owner-freebsd-sparc Mon Jan 4 08:09:55 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id IAA00459 for freebsd-sparc-outgoing; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 08:09:55 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from alpha.netaccess.on.ca (netaccess.on.ca [199.243.225.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id IAA00454 for ; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 08:09:53 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from rob@ControlQ.com) Received: from fatlady.controlq.com (dial091.netaccess.on.ca [199.243.225.219]) by alpha.netaccess.on.ca (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id LAA14102; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 11:05:26 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 11:11:43 -0500 (EST) From: "Robert S. Sciuk" To: Paolo Di Francesco cc: Wes Peters , freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Read this... In-Reply-To: <19981231132024.BNEK27753.fep04-svc@winworkstation> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-sparc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Thu, 31 Dec 1998, Paolo Di Francesco wrote: > > > So why not buy an older SPARC, for far less money, and work on that? > > Much of what you learn will be portable to the UltraSPARC system later > > on, and these machines are fantastically reliable. > > > > 1) We are starting now with the kernel. Maybe in late 1999 we'll have > something working on Ultra. So what will be developed now will be used > in the Y2K. I don't think that to develop on an old sparc is so > exciting. 8) Perhaps not exciting, but surely useful to owners of Sparc 4x machines. I've just installed the latest Solaris on an IPX box, but would have preferred to put FreeBSD on it if available -- Linux, well, no. IMHO if some care is taken in the wordsize/alignment issues, then the incremental backport from Ultra to 4x can be reduced to driver/bus issues, and we can eventually have our cake (Ultra) and icing (Sparc 4x) as well. > > 2) For old sparc there is Linux, but on Ultra there is less support. doh! ... > > When Dayna Communications was "assimilated" into the Intel intranet in > > January of this year, they retired their DNS and mail server, which was > > a SPARCstation SLC manufactured in 1990. When it was shutdown, it had > > been up for over 200 days, because it had been neglected since the Intel > > acquisition. Before that, the engineer in charge of it would reboot it > > twice a year, on Dec 24 and July 3, "just to be safe." ;^) > BTW: I've seen Intel h/w run in excess of 200 days, down only for power outages, but they were either running Unix or NetWare. I've never seen a Gates supplied virus come even close to that level of stability. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Robert S. Sciuk 1032 Howard Rd. PO Box 6A Ph:905 632-2466 Control-Q Research Burlington, Ont. Canada Fx:905 632-7417 rob@ControlQ.com L7R 3X5 http://www.ControlQ.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-sparc" in the body of the message