Booting Sun Sparc Servers

In early 2022, the author obtained several Sun SPARC servers for free and updated readers on their progress. These devices, like the SPARCstation 20 and the Ultra 1 Creator, face NVRAM issues due to battery degradation, resulting in configuration wipes. The author provides a detailed step-by-step guide on manually restoring the NVRAM values using the OpenBoot debugging prompt. Additionally, a Sun Ultra 1 successfully booted, while an Axil Ultima 1 Sun clone faced booting struggles and eventually failed. Surprisingly, the SPARCstation 20 experienced memory diagnostic failures and contained a unique detail of a bear with a top hat on the motherboard. The author also explores configuring RARP for Solaris on a Raspberry Pi.

https://sidneys1.com/retrocomputing/2024/10/04/booting-sun-sparc-servers.html

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