Well they called it a Lunchbox.

I call it a 500Mhz SPARC Classic .. The idea of this project it to convert this old Sparc (one of them) into a small little mail/server.

I am thinking of keeping the external cdrom drive case and permanently attaching it to the under side of the Sparc. cutting through through the bottom of the Sparc and the top of the external box i should be able to fish the IDE cable through and possibly the power from above else i can power the CDrom by the external boxes power supply. If i remember right the Sparc's had a power pass through like the old XTs did so you could run the monitor off the pass through power connector with out having to suck up another wall socket.

Time will tell.....

Well I found the board. It is currently sitting inside this, a Barbie PC.

The challenge now is to mount the board and get a 1U server power supply into the case along with the hard drive. The draw back of using this motherboard is that it is an INTEL BP810 board. Flex-ATX form factor but only able to take up to 256M of ram and a 533 Celeron PPGA so there is already a ceiling on the speed and uses this can have. So it will be replacing my mailbox as my linux machine for home. It may double duty as the house web server if it proves to be adequate with a C400 processor and the 256M.

After doing some reading on the other Flex-ATX boards and finding the newer ones (P4/Celeron 478) to be not cost effective for this project I opted for this Intel board. The first issue already is, and could kill the project, the fact that this is a legacy free motherboard. It has no PS/2 ports, repeat none, nadda, zilch. So Just try to install Windows (anything) on this. lets see you click on OK when it asks about the USB driver, Next? I don't think so, since the USB has tried to init it turns off the legacy support which was what got you that far, keyboard goes too at the same time. so you are stuck there. Window 2k might have been an option but i don't know. So I currently have the PS/2 to USB adapter that converts the ps/2 keyboard and mouse to a USB port so i can get some place with this. I also got a 3Com USB NIC as it was listed with one of the most compatible chip-sets for Linux. So i should be able to install Debian or something on this and make it work. From my first attempt i found that I needed to make Linux load the USBmouse module at boot. Also betting i need a module probably called usbkbd too... then i should be able to get the USBnic running .

Feb2004 After playing around with it I got Linux loaded on this little thing. It turns out that you need to get the Kernel to load USBKBD and USBmouse in the list of things to do else after it init's the USB controller away goes you legacy keyboard/mouse. so after that little lesson i got all working on the little box. After some rummaging around i scrounged up a 256M DIMM and a Celeron 500 (18.75 from Compgeeks). I have now dubbed the thing Speleron.I acquired an external USB->5.25" IDE drive hoping that i could use that to drive a Toshiba CDrom in the external SUN box. but unfortunately I have run into another road block. This box is run by a ScanLogic controller that is apparently flakey under linux as it doens't return a "tag" field correctly. (figures... winbloz seems to have no problem with it if you uninstall EzcdCreator .... no worries there). So I'll probably take this box to the next GLUG meeting and see if anyone there has any clues, else the mailing list. I have managed to cobble a tray out of the tray that held the mother board into the Barbie PC that i was able to make fit in the SPARC chassis.I bolted the plate to the bottom of the SPARC and cut up the back so that the motherboard connections come out the back unobstructed. I even was able to mount a dual USB header into a serial connector hole in the lower part of the back which falls under the motherboard sled now. cool. Now to find a place to put the USB-Serial header that they put on this thing(gotta run the palm pilot somehow right?, ok i'll get a USB one hooked up to it....maybe). So i guess now that i am some what stuck on this until the 1U ATX power supply that I ordered up gets here (believe it or not it should fit in the floppy bay. with room to spare) I'll be back at the BarTop Mame machine.

Time moves on.

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