💾 Archived View for owo.pm › electronics › computers › sun › sparcstation4.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 15:53:49. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-01-29)
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This is one of the most difficult machines I had to work with. From it's mind-boggling DB13W3 display output, to its special RAM format, this machine is just headaches after headaches. I always wanted an exotic computer, being drawn to esoteric CPU architectures, so when this machine appeared on Facebook Marketplace, I had to have it.
With my boyfriend, we are trying to put back some life into it. After running some on-board diagnostics, it seems we have some issues with the video circuitry so that might explain why we cannot have any display. After installing the 'new' hard-drive, we've been able to install OpenBSD on the system. It boots fine, but of course it's really slow and we don't have any graphics. We installed the OS with an external CD-ROM drive connected through SCSI, and because no display, we used a serial console to proceed with the installation. We've been able to connect the machine on the internet, and even establish an SSH connection. We tried to boot up a remote X11 session without luck _so far_.