We have just acquired a sparcstation 4, but have not got a Sun monitor to use it with. We can't set it up because we can't see anything to set it up!!
Does anyone know a keyboard shortcut to boot into safe mode so that we can get started with it? We are going in ever decreasing circles at the moment.
Thanks for any help you can offer
spudikk
Hello Sheila,
please review the two sticky posts at the head of this forum
<a href="http://supportforum.sun.com/hardware/index.php?t= msg&th=5291" target="_blank"><b>sticky: Attaching a PC to Sun workstation/server</b></a>
<a href="http://supportforum.sun.com/hardware/index.php?t= msg&th=3542" target="_blank"><b>sticky: How to connect to Sun Systems via TIP</b></a>
Installation using the console (serial) port works fine. Afterwards the system can easily administrated over the network.
<a href="http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/SS4/ SS4.html" target="_blank"><b>SPARCstation[tm] 4 Workstation</b></a> Sun System Handbook page
<a href="http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/802-1529-10?l=en &q=802-1529&a=load" target="_blank"><b>SPARCstation 4/Xterminal 1 Service Manual DOWNLOAD</b></a>
Michael
Thanks for that, I had looked at the sticky but just wondered if there was an easy shortcut to use from the keyboard when the machine is starting up so that we can set it up with a pc monitor and without having to connect it to a pc.
I had also seen the manual link at the sun website, but it still doesn't really answer our problem.
Thanks Sheila
Hello Sheila,
How do you attach a PC monitor with a VGA (HD15) plug to a Sun framebuffer with a 13W3 connector ?
How do you know that the PC monitor syncs at 1152x900 66Hz/76Hz ?
<i>if there was an easy shortcut to use from the keyboard when the machine is starting up so that we can set it up with a pc monitor</i>
You can't change the resolution, this is the only one.
Besides the Sun keyboard a Sun mouse is required for the GUI.
Michael
"safe mode" is peculiar to Microsoft's OS's.
From Win95 through WinME, you'd end up in 640x480 resolution, while Win2k and WinXP get you into (I think) a default 800x600 graphical resolution.
<b>The closest equivalent for a Solaris-based system would be to boot to single-user mode.</b>
But all that would accomplish is that you end up
in a command-line non-graphical environment, <u>at Sun's default screen resolution</u>.
As Michael has noted, that default is 1152x900 at a vertical refresh rate of 66Hz.
That is particularly true for a SPARCstation 4, which was discontinued in 1997.
If you interrupted POST and halted the system at OBP, you would <i>still</i> be in a 1152x900 screen mode.
Think back...mid-1990's ...
PC's were rarely configured beyond 1024x768, while Sun was already at a higher resolution.
For the near forseeable future,
you may have no recourse but to TIP into the system,
as per the sticky forum posts.
The framebuffer options for such an old system are so few,
with such a limited ability for different resolutions,
that you're likely going to need a more capable monitor, or run it remotely as a headless system.
Hello.
If you use a 13W3-to-HD15 connector:
Some Sun graphics cards generate a "composite sync" signal by default. In this case you cannot just connect a normal VGA monitor to your Sun.
However it is sometimes possible (e.g. with the Elite3D card) to switch from composite sync to seperate sync (what normal VGA monitors need) when starting the X server.
In the internet you can find circuits using the LM-1881 chip which generate a seperate sync from composite sync signal. I soldered such a circuit - it works rather badly.
Martin
