Thank you!
On 30/05/24 15:10, Christopher Zach via cctalk wrote:
Am at a conference just do a search on 386i and I should pop up
On May 30, 2024 9:06:48 AM EDT, Stefano Sanna via cctalk<cctalk@classiccmp.org>
wrote:
Hi.
I thought about using the serial connection (which should be enabled only if
the video card is removed).
Thank you for the advice about the battery: usual issue with SGI, Sony News....
:-)
Unfortunately, the hard disk was been removed before I collected the
workstation.
Could you please share the link to your post on the VCF Forum?
Thank you.
-s
On 30/05/24 11:53, cz via cctalk wrote:
I have one around here somewhere. Sun built two cables, one was for the color
boards (CGThree and CGFive) and the other was for monochrome systems (the D15).
In the meantime you can hook a computer to the RS232 port and start running the
thing headless to see what's there. Note, you're going to have to replace the
timekeeper chip (or hack a new battery into it, there's docs on how I did that
30 years ago). I recommend wiring in a dual AAA adapter, that way you can
replace the batteries every 15 or so years.
Last time I fired up my three 386i's, two of the power supplies had blown up
and one of the boards would not pass diagnostics. Of the supplies, one was
hopeless so I hacked in a standard PC-AT supply board and got everything
running (you don't NEED the -15 volts, but heck some ISA board you plug in will
want it :-) and I figured out how to fix the other one by wiring in a new 12
volt kick starter supply to get the main supply up and running.
I wrote up all of this on the vcf forum. Worth a read.
If it's got a hard disk and it spins I'd recommend hooking it up to a SCSI
adapter and doing a dd image of it first. Then you can figure out the
partitions by whacking away at the image (I did this), then mount the volumes
on another system, grab /etc/passwd, and crack the passwords in about 4 hours
with john or a related tool.
Once up, put it on the public internet and confuse the hell out of hackers.
Have fun!
CZ
On 5/30/2024 4:59 AM, Stefano Sanna via cctalk wrote:
Hi.
I recently bought a Sun Microsystems 386i and I discovered (too late...) that monitor and
keyboard are connected to the same D15 connector on the back using a "Y" cable
(I had experience with other Sun workstations, this was first contact with Intel-based
hardware).
Unfortunately, I have not such a cable neither I was able to find any info on
the web about the pinout/wiring; probably it would be possible to create the
cable from scratch (assuming that no other circuitry was inside the original Y
cable). Moreover, I discovered that there is more than one option for video
boards (mono and color): therefore, there is more than a single Y cable to
connect monitor and keyboard.
Looking at the official Sun's hardware list, I found this item:
630-1621 386i video/keyboard cable
but it does not specify whether it is the mono or the color cable. In any case,
it seems impossible to buy it on eBay or similar.
Does anybody have some information on how to rebuild it?
Thank you.
-s
