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Rescuing from the scrapyard

PostPosted: Wed Apr 01, 2015 12:57 pm
by glc
My employer was closing up the business.

There was a sun Ultra 1 that had been used for a test fixture that I had had my eyes on for a long time.
It also had not been used for a long time
One day my boss told me it had gone , to the scrap yard that morning.
I found out where it was and I got there within an hour and it was there , and they gave it to me for nothing

A photo of it here.
http://s1379.photobucket.com/user/glc/m ... y.jpg.html
the suns (sparc processor) don't run windows but are typically supported by debian, gentoo or *BSD, oh.. yeah, solaris 8 or 9 too

when I got it home and powered it up , it just gave a short 'chirp', not the welcoming sun 'beep'
I quickly found a rather black tantalum capacitor and removed it.
It powered up , no problems at all then
Fortunatly i have another Ultra 1 from whichI was able to get the correct value from and replace it.
However this one is a little better with creator 3d graphics card


A little later I indicated my interest in some other old stuff if it was available.
Alas, it was going to scrap , unless I wanted it
These were used in a manufacturing process to control insertion machine

I now have 3 x Aval AVC-999
I only got to test them this morning, here are the results


http://s1379.photobucket.com/user/glc/m ... sort=3&o=2

one is incomplete and for spare parts

One works (runs CP/M)
http://s1379.photobucket.com/user/glc/m ... sort=3&o=3

and the other looks complete but not booting

here's a picture of the motherboard which is hinged from the underside of the unit
It runs a Z80A
http://s1379.photobucket.com/user/glc/m ... sort=3&o=1

I can find very little info about these machines on google except a spanish collector who has one
http://translate.google.co.nz/translate ... rev=search

anyone else got any info ?

well , since my employer has closed the business I have lots of time to fix the one that doesn't go........amongst all the other stuff to repair...... :-)

maybe I should be looking for another job....


cheers

Grant