[rescue] Blade 100 - X86 CPU option?

[Brian Archer]

Hi All,

I recently acquired a blade 100 (500mhz) desktop. I want to upgrade the CPU
to a Sparc 650mhz IIi CPU. When looking at the motherboard I see a jumper
to enable an x86 mode? I notice the CPU socket is the same as a socket 370.
Is it really possible to put a P3 or other contemporary CPU on this logic
board?

In addition I have a SunPCI x86 card. Does anyone have a link to the
software? I can't find it anywhere.

Thanks,
Brian Archer
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

[Dave McGuire]

Post by Brian Archer
I recently acquired a blade 100 (500mhz) desktop. I want to upgrade the CPU
to a Sparc 650mhz IIi CPU. When looking at the motherboard I see a jumper
to enable an x86 mode? I notice the CPU socket is the same as a socket 370.
Is it really possible to put a P3 or other contemporary CPU on this logic
board?

That would surprise me quite a lot. What does that jumper
nomenclature actually say?

Post by Brian Archer
In addition I have a SunPCI x86 card. Does anyone have a link to the
software? I can't find it anywhere.

There are many versions of that board. I several of the packages to
support them up here:

http://www.neurotica.com/misc/SunPCi

-Dave

[Brian Archer]

Hi Dave,

That would surprise me quite a lot. What does that jumper nomenclature

actually say?

I will also be surprised as I've never heard of this being possible. The
Jumper is labeled:
"For X86 CPU North Bridge"
In addition there is a jumper labeled:
"PS2 Keyboard"

Thank you for hosting the SunPCI software! Downloading now.

Thanks,
Brian Archer

Post by Brian Archer
I recently acquired a blade 100 (500mhz) desktop. I want to upgrade the

CPU

Post by Brian Archer
to a Sparc 650mhz IIi CPU. When looking at the motherboard I see a jumper
to enable an x86 mode? I notice the CPU socket is the same as a socket

370.

Post by Brian Archer
Is it really possible to put a P3 or other contemporary CPU on this logic
board?

That would surprise me quite a lot. What does that jumper
nomenclature actually say?

Post by Brian Archer
In addition I have a SunPCI x86 card. Does anyone have a link to the
software? I can't find it anywhere.

There are many versions of that board. I several of the packages to
http://www.neurotica.com/misc/SunPCi
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

[Jonathan Katz]

Post by Brian Archer
Hi Dave,

That would surprise me quite a lot. What does that jumper nomenclature

actually say?
I will also be surprised as I've never heard of this being possible. The
"For X86 CPU North Bridge"
"PS2 Keyboard"

Yes, in pre-production they had the ability to run an AMD K6(?) CPU of
that era, but it required special firmware. There were two reasons for
this, IIRC. The first was they were thinking of offering an x86
workstation as some people did see the writing on the wall with Sparc
at that point in time (circa 2001.) The other reason was that the IIi
was taking a while to get production units and they wanted to test the
ancillary hardware. The box is essentially a PC of that era with
special firmware and a Sparc CPU shoved in, built that way by SUNW to
cut costs on Sparc workstations.
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

[Dave McGuire]

Post by Jonathan Katz

Post by Dave McGuire

That would surprise me quite a lot. What does that jumper nomenclature

actually say?
I will also be surprised as I've never heard of this being possible. The
"For X86 CPU North Bridge"
"PS2 Keyboard"

Yes, in pre-production they had the ability to run an AMD K6(?) CPU of
that era, but it required special firmware. There were two reasons for
this, IIRC.

That's terrifying. And it also says a lot about the Blade 100. No
wonder I've never been particularly interested in those. I must've
known somehow, deep down inside. ;) Those machines always looked a lot
like the garbage Ultra5/Ultra10 systems to me.

Post by Jonathan Katz
The first was they were thinking of offering an x86
workstation as some people did see the writing on the wall with Sparc
at that point in time (circa 2001.)

Hah, and almost two decades later it's almost coming to pass. ;)
Those "they're going out of business any day now!!" people are always so
funny to listen to. Stewart Alsop II: "I predict that the last
mainframe will be unplugged on March 15, 1996."

That reminds me of a fun conversation with a guy at the museum a few
weeks ago. We were talking about VAXen, and he asked why the product
failed. Now...in the museum, we adopt a very formal manner, and I would
never call an idiot an idiot to his/her face in there. (as opposed to
outside the museum, where I do so with glee) But I had to explain, as
patiently as possible, that with hundreds of thousands of systems
shipped (some of which cost in the six digits) over nearly thirty years,
with some still in production use today, by what possible metric could
that be considered a "failed product"?

Post by Jonathan Katz
The other reason was that the IIi
was taking a while to get production units and they wanted to test the
ancillary hardware. The box is essentially a PC of that era with
special firmware and a Sparc CPU shoved in, built that way by SUNW to
cut costs on Sparc workstations.

It's amazing that they were able to design in any degree of bus-level
compatibility there. Such a neat (but again, terrifying) idea.

-Dave

[Patrick Giagnocavo]

IMHO it was such a sad thing that they never re-spun those chips and
got the clock speed higher, to about 1Ghz (or added more cache, or
whatever).

The second generation v120s (used a similar board I think?) could have
been astounding deals for Web hosting, given the many stumbles Intel
made with early P4 architecture, if they had just fixed the onboard
ATA chips and had faster CPUs. As it was they were in real world use
about as fast as mid-range P3s.

Post by Dave McGuire

Post by Jonathan Katz

Post by Dave McGuire

That would surprise me quite a lot. What does that jumper nomenclature

actually say?
I will also be surprised as I've never heard of this being possible. The
"For X86 CPU North Bridge"
"PS2 Keyboard"

Yes, in pre-production they had the ability to run an AMD K6(?) CPU of
that era, but it required special firmware. There were two reasons for
this, IIRC.

That's terrifying. And it also says a lot about the Blade 100. No
wonder I've never been particularly interested in those. I must've
known somehow, deep down inside. ;) Those machines always looked a lot
like the garbage Ultra5/Ultra10 systems to me.

Post by Jonathan Katz
The first was they were thinking of offering an x86
workstation as some people did see the writing on the wall with Sparc
at that point in time (circa 2001.)

Hah, and almost two decades later it's almost coming to pass. ;)
Those "they're going out of business any day now!!" people are always so
funny to listen to. Stewart Alsop II: "I predict that the last
mainframe will be unplugged on March 15, 1996."
That reminds me of a fun conversation with a guy at the museum a few
weeks ago. We were talking about VAXen, and he asked why the product
failed. Now...in the museum, we adopt a very formal manner, and I would
never call an idiot an idiot to his/her face in there. (as opposed to
outside the museum, where I do so with glee) But I had to explain, as
patiently as possible, that with hundreds of thousands of systems
shipped (some of which cost in the six digits) over nearly thirty years,
with some still in production use today, by what possible metric could
that be considered a "failed product"?

Post by Jonathan Katz
The other reason was that the IIi
was taking a while to get production units and they wanted to test the
ancillary hardware. The box is essentially a PC of that era with
special firmware and a Sparc CPU shoved in, built that way by SUNW to
cut costs on Sparc workstations.

It's amazing that they were able to design in any degree of bus-level
compatibility there. Such a neat (but again, terrifying) idea.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

[Andrew M. Hoerter]

Post by Dave McGuire
That reminds me of a fun conversation with a guy at the museum a few
weeks ago. We were talking about VAXen, and he asked why the product
failed. Now...in the museum, we adopt a very formal manner, and I would
never call an idiot an idiot to his/her face in there. (as opposed to
outside the museum, where I do so with glee) But I had to explain, as
patiently as possible, that with hundreds of thousands of systems
shipped (some of which cost in the six digits) over nearly thirty years,
with some still in production use today, by what possible metric could
that be considered a "failed product"?

I'd hazard a guess that the true thrust of his question was, why did
the VAX "lose" in the broad marketplace, such that the average
computer on a desk today is a PC and not a VAX. Not a totally dumb
question for someone who lacks historical context: RISC v. CISC, the
rise of workstations, the explosion of the microcomputer market
(mostly postdating the VAX's development), etc.

Obviously, as a product the VAX is most certainly not a failure. In
some ways it's the evolutionary apex of one branch of hardware design.
But I can understand how the modern perspective would dismiss it as
being some old, "failed" thing from the 70s. The current x86 dark age
tends to obscure all that came before.
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

[Lionel Peterson]

The VAX is a failure, just like the Ford Model T is a failure...

Once they stopped building a computer called VAX, it became a 'failure'.

In related news (sort of) I was at a used book store this afternoon and found
a copy of a book called "Getting Started with OpenVMS" - I almost bought it,
though I never ran OpenVMS on any machine I've ever owned, but stopped when I
saw they wanted $24.95 for it.

I went looking for a link with of the description of the book and found that
Amazon wants $60+ for the book!

https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Started-OpenVMS-Guide-Technologies/dp/15555827
96/ref=nodl_

Yikes!

Lionel

Post by Dave McGuire
But I had to explain, as
patiently as possible, that with hundreds of thousands of systems
shipped (some of which cost in the six digits) over nearly thirty years,
with some still in production use today, by what possible metric could
that be considered a "failed product"?

_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

[John Francini]

I can see that. OpenVMS is not dead. It still runs on itanium and alpha
servers, and is being actively ported to x86_64 by the present owners, VMS
Software Inc. Therebs an active roadmap that stretches out beyond 2020:
http://vmssoftware.com/pdfs/VSI_Roadmap_20171215.pdf

No, I donbt work for them. However, as the last true DEC derived OS, I still
want to see them succeed.

John

--
John Francini <***@mac.com>
"I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace; that
two are called a law firm; and that three or more become a Congress. And by
God I have had *this* Congress!" --John Adams

Post by Lionel Peterson
The VAX is a failure, just like the Ford Model T is a failure...
Once they stopped building a computer called VAX, it became a 'failure'.
In related news (sort of) I was at a used book store this afternoon and found
a copy of a book called "Getting Started with OpenVMS" - I almost bought it,
though I never ran OpenVMS on any machine I've ever owned, but stopped when I
saw they wanted $24.95 for it.
I went looking for a link with of the description of the book and found that
Amazon wants $60+ for the book!

https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Started-OpenVMS-Guide-Technologies/dp/15555827

Post by Lionel Peterson
96/ref=nodl_
Yikes!
Lionel

Post by Dave McGuire
But I had to explain, as
patiently as possible, that with hundreds of thousands of systems
shipped (some of which cost in the six digits) over nearly thirty years,
with some still in production use today, by what possible metric could
that be considered a "failed product"?

_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

[Andrew Liles]

Post by Brian Archer
Hi All,
I recently acquired a blade 100 (500mhz) desktop. I want to upgrade the CPU
to a Sparc 650mhz IIi CPU. When looking at the motherboard I see a jumper
to enable an x86 mode? I notice the CPU socket is the same as a socket 370.
Is it really possible to put a P3 or other contemporary CPU on this logic
board?

I noticed that on mine as well. There is a lot of PC-type hardware on the
board so I think it was at least the intention to dual-purpose them, but not
sure if all the supporting hardware/BIOS/etc. is actually present. I have seen
some reference to people saying you can drop an Intel chip in there but I
haven't seen any credible proof of anyone actually trying it.

Here's a thread on nekochan where it's mentioned:

http://forums.nekochan.net/viewtopic.php?t=16728653

Post by Brian Archer
In addition I have a SunPCI x86 card. Does anyone have a link to the
software? I can't find it anywhere.

On that note... I'm also looking for the SunPC (SBus) card software... it's
unobtanium as far as I've found.
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

[Mike Spooner]

Post by Andrew Liles
...
On that note... I'm also looking for the SunPC (SBus) card software... it's
unobtanium as far as I've found.

Not any more: http://shelldozer.im/sunpc - software and User Guide

Regards,
Mike Spooner
http://mbus.sunhelp.org
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

[Andrew Liles]

Post by Mike Spooner

Post by Andrew Liles
...
On that note... I'm also looking for the SunPC (SBus) card software... it's
unobtanium as far as I've found.

Not any more: http://shelldozer.im/sunpc - software and User Guide

This is fantastic, thanks!! I have the 5x86 card and will probably throw it in
one of my SS20's to test this out finally!

-a
_______________________________________________
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue