Archive-name: sun2-hdwr-ref/part1 Posting-Frequency: as revised Version: $Id: $ THE SUN-2 HARDWARE REFERENCE compiled by James W. Birdsall (jwbirdsa@picarefy.com) TABLE OF CONTENTS ================= FILE SECTIONS --------------- -------------------------- part1 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION OFFICIAL HOME OF THIS REFERENCE HOW TO USE THE REFERENCE MODELS SUMMARY Introduction FAQ Sun-1 Family Sun-2 Family Overview by Model Sun-1 Models Sun-2 Models part2 HARDWARE Boards CPUs Introduction FAQ Overview by Model Listing by Part Number Legend Parts part3 Memory Introduction FAQ Listing by Part Number Legend Parts Video Introduction FAQ Standards BW MG CG GP Listing by Part Number Legend Parts SCSI controllers Non-SCSI disk controllers Tape controllers Communications (serial, Ethernet, etc.) Floating-point/system accelerators Hard drive SCSI converters Backplanes Other Mass Storage SCSI overview Hard drives SMD MFM ESDI Tape drives Tape formats 9-track QIC-11 QIC-24 Other Keyboards Mice Monitors SPECIAL TOPICS Connector Glossary Board Cross-compatibility Busses Cardcage Configuration Pinout Summary Ethernet Video Keyboard and Mouse Serial SCSI Diagnostic LED Summary SOFTWARE Boot ROM Compatibility SunOS Compatibility Sun-2 SunOS Tapes Installing SunOS 3.x (and 4.0.x?) SOURCES Bibliography Contributors Other Resources PART NUMBER INDEX INTRODUCTION ============ This is the Sun-2 Hardware Reference, which attempts to provide as much information as possible about older Sun-badged hardware and hardware commonly used with older Sun workstations. The primary audience for this reference is buyers and collectors of used Sun hardware, much of which comes without documentation. The focus of the reference is the Sun-1 family (to the extent that information about these units is even available!) and the Sun-2 family, and hardware used with them. In some cases, there is overlap with later product lines. Note that this reference does not attempt to cover all hardware which *can* be used with Sun-1's or Sun-2's, although it mentions known instances of upward compatibility; it covers the hardware which a buyer or collector is likely to encounter when obtaining a used machine from the original purchaser. THERE IS NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND on the information in this document. It has been assembled from a variety of sources of varying reliability. Efforts have been made to exclude information known to be incorrect, and to include only information deemed reasonably reliable, but there is no guarantee on any of it, especially since official Sun documents occasionally contradict each other or are just plain incorrect. This document is copyright (c) 1995, 1996, 1997 by James W. Birdsall. You may distribute it freely in unmodified form. THIS DOCUMENT IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. I still have a lot of information which I have not had time to integrate yet. However, I am always looking for more -- if you have documentation for systems or boards not listed here, please let me know! OFFICIAL HOME OF THIS DOCUMENT ============================== The official home of this document is ftp.picarefy.com, available via anonymous FTP in the /pub/Sun-Hardware-Ref directory. My connection to the outside world is slow, so you may want to try one of the sites listed below. It is also available via anonymous FTP from: ftp.intnet.net /pub/SUN/Sun-Hardware-Ref ftp.chicks.net /pub/unix/sun-hardware IF YOU GOT THIS DOCUMENT FROM ANYWHERE ELSE, IT IS AN UNOFFICIAL SITE! There is no guarantee that this is the latest version (which may contain significant and important changes). If you wish to make the Sun Hardware Reference available on your site, please contact me at jwbirdsa@picarefy.com and I will put you on the mailing list. You will be notified whenever a new version is ready. HOW TO USE THE REFERENCE ======================== This document is broadly divided into a few high-level categories (model summary, hardware, special topics, etc.), each of which is divided into more specific sections and sometimes even subsections. Each section or subsection normally consists of: + an introduction + a FAQ + an overview by model + any special topics related to the subject + a listing by part number So, for example, to find out: + what models can use the same memory, look under "HARDWARE/Boards/Memory/Overview by Model". + about SCSI ID settings, look under "HARDWARE/Mass Storage/SCSI Overview". + how many colors a "cgtwo" framebuffer supports, look under "HARDWARE/Boards/Video/Standards". + how to arrange boards in your VME-based machine, look under "SPECIAL TOPICS/Cardcage Configuration" (to find out what VME is, look under "SPECIAL TOPICS/Busses"). + the pinout of your system's serial port, look under "SPECIAL TOPICS/Pinout Summary". + what a xxx-xxxx (e.g. 501-1007) is and details about it, look in the "PART NUMBER INDEX". If there is any information about that part in the Reference, that index will tell you what section to look in (and may at least give you a name for the item even if no other information is known). Once you know the section, check the "Listing by Part Number" under that section. I have attempted to crossreference items as much as possible. So, if you went looking for a serial port pinout under "HARDWARE/Boards/CPUs /Listing by Part Number/xxx-xxxx", you would find a pointer to "SPECIAL TOPICS/Pinout Summary". MODELS SUMMARY ============== Introduction ------------ Sun's workstations can be broadly divided into five families: Sun-1, Sun-2, Sun-3, Sun386i, and Sun-4. The first three use successive generations of the Motorola 680x0 microprocessor. The Sun386i family was an abortive attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the Intel 80386 in IBM PC-compatibles. With the Sun-4 family, Sun moved to a RISC microprocessor of their own design, the SPARC. FAQ --- 1) How do I tell what model I have? 2) What's the first/last version of SunOS for my sun2? 1) How do I tell what model I have? It isn't necessarily easy. Later models (most Sun-3's and later) usually have a model designation on the chassis. However, in many cases there is nothing tying a particular chassis to a particular motherboard or CPU, and that's what really determines what model a particular machine is. This is especially true for VME-based chassis, where CPUs could be swapped with ease, frequently creating combinations which Sun never intended. There are two ways to really be sure what you have: 1) look up the part number on the CPU board or 2) watch the machine boot from being powered off -- the boot ROM should display a banner which indicates what model (or family, in the case of CPUs which could be used in many models) the CPU belongs to. That's all you really need to know. If you're curious, you can check the list of official models below to see if anything matches what you have. 2) What's the first/last version of SunOS for my sun2? All Sun-2 machines have the same kernel architecture ("sun2") and run the same versions of SunOS. SunOS was originally written for the Sun-2 (and Sun 100U, which is actually a Sun-2 CPU), so the first official version of SunOS for the Sun-2 is 1.0. The last version is 4.0.3. Note that SunOS 4.x for Sun-2's is only known to exist on QIC-24 tapes, not QIC-11 (which was the standard for Sun-2's). Hence, installing SunOS 4.x will require a QIC-24 drive (most easily acquired from a Sun-3, where it was the standard) and boot ROM version 1.1.2, which is required to boot from a QIC-24 drive. Depending on the part number of your CPU board, it may be necessary to move a jumper as well in order to install and run SunOS 4.x. Sun-1 Family ------------ Sun-1's were the very first models ever produced by Sun. The earliest ran Unisoft V7 UNIX; SunOS 1.x was introduced later. According to some sources, fewer than 200 Sun-1's were ever produced; they are certainly rare. The switch from Motorola 68000's to 68010's occurred during the Sun-1's reign. 68000-based Sun-1's are not supported by SunOS. From bjork@rahul.net (../Steven): [The Sun-1] did not have the DVMA of the sun2 architecture. There was an even earlier board that had the 68000, not the 68010. The 68000 board was licensed by Stanford to several folks (can't recall names). The original cisco CPU was a slightly upgraded 68000 version. Andy Bechtolsheim was using SUDS on the triple-I in the CS Dungeon (Margaret Jacks Hall) when my boss asked him to modify the sun board to accept 256K RAM chips. I handed Andy a pencil and the schematics and he scribbled the mods on it. I took the mods, and with Exacto knife and jumpers, modified a sun board for the 256K chips. Len Bosack then took the mods and re-layed out the PC. That board was the first cisco CPU, and was also produced internally to Stanford. [...] The original sun lacked the DVMA and thus needed Multibus memory. Their "ar" tape controller design thus included 256K of Multibus memory. When upgraded to a sun2, one had to switch this ar-resident memory off since it would conflict with the DVMA memory on the sun2 P2 (memory bus). Sun-2 Family ------------ Sun-2's were introduced in the early 1980's and were Sun's first major commercial success. While not as popular or as common as the later Sun-3's, they did well and there are still quite a few in circulation in the home/collector-used market. All Sun-2's are based on the Motorola 68010 and run SunOS. Early Sun-2's were Multibus; later models were VME, which Sun continued to use through the Sun-3 era and well into the Sun-4 line. One of the hardest parts of restoring a Sun-2 is finding SunOS tapes for it. The hardware is usually still in fine working order, but tapes -- if you can even find any -- are sometimes unreadable after so many years. (See "SOFTWARE/Sun-2 SunOS Tapes".) Overview by Model ----------------- This section lists all the models within each family. They are listed approximately in order of introduction. For each model listed, whatever information is available is given, in the following order: Processor: Microprocessor followed by its clock speed in MHz. CPU or motherboard: The Sun part number of the CPU board or motherboard. Chassis type: + "Rackmount" chassis, as the name suggests, are designed to fit into a standard 19" equipment rack. They usually require clearance over and under the chassis for cooling. + "Pizza box" chassis are intended to sit on a desktop, typically underneath the monitor; they are low, wide, and deep. Some pizza boxes (including my 2/50) have a 'dimple top', a case top with a circular depression that allows the chassis to serve as a tilt/swivel monitor base directly. + "deskside" chassis are large towers that are intended to stand on the floor. Nine-slot Multibus and twelve-slot VME chassis fall into this category. Bus: Whatever bus or busses the machine has. Sun-1's and Sun-2's were either Multibus or VMEbus. Memory: Amount of physical memory the machine can take. Notes: General information which does not belong under other headings. Sun-1 Models ------------ Sun-1 Processor(s): 68000? Notes: Large black desktop boxes with 17" monitors. Uses the original Stanford-designed video board and a parallel microswitch keyboard (type 1) and parallel mouse (Sun-1). 100 Processor(s): 68000? @ 10MHz Bus: Multibus (serial?) Notes: Uses a design similar to original SUN (Stanford University Network) CPU. The version 1.5 CPU can take larger RAMs. 170 Processor(s): 68010? Bus: Multibus? Chassis type: rackmount Notes: Server. Slightly different chassis design than 2/170. Sun-2 Models ------------ 2/120 Processor(s): 68010 @ 10MHz CPU: 501-1007/1051 Chassis type: deskside Bus: Multibus (9 slots) Memory: 7M physical Notes: First machines in deskside chassis. Serial microswitch keyboard (type 2), Mouse Systems optical mouse (Sun-2). 2/100U Processor(s): 68010 @ 10MHz CPU: 501-1007 Bus: Multibus Notes: Upgraded Sun 100. Replaced CPU and memory boards with first-generation Sun-2 CPU and memory boards so original customers could run SunOS 1.x. Still has parallel kb/mouse interface so type 1 keyboards and Sun-1 mice could be connected. 2/150U Notes: Apparently also an upgraded Sun-1. 2/170 Chassis type: rackmount Bus: Multibus (15 slots) Notes: Rackmount version of 2/120, with more slots. 2/50 Processor(s): 68010 @ 10MHz CPU: 501-1141/1142/1143/1426/1427/1428 Chassis type: wide pizza box Bus: VME (2 slots) Memory: 7M physical Notes: The (type 2) keyboard and mouse attach via an adapter that accepts two modular plugs and attaches to a DB15 port; later on, units were apparently shipped with type 3 keyboards. The CPU boards have a double-width back panel but are otherwise identical to those in the 2/130 and 2/160. 2/130 2/160 Processor(s): 68010 @ 10MHz CPU: 501-1144/1145/1146/1429/1430/1431 Chassis type: deskside Bus: VME (12 slots) Memory: 7M physical Notes: First machine in 12-slot deskside VME chassis. Has four-fan cooling tray instead of six as in later machines, which led to cooling problems with lots of cards. Backplane has only four P2 memory connectors bussed instead of six as in later 12-slot backplanes; SCSI passthrough is in slot 6 instead of 7 as in later 12-slot backplanes. Upgradeable to a 3/160 by replacing the CPU board. No information on the differences between the 2/130 and the 2/160.