Re: Fun question about Sun history (curiousity)

From: Christopher Tidy (cdt22_at_cantabgold.net)
Date: 04/30/05 

Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2005 12:29:08 +0000 (UTC)

Huge wrote:
> newsreader <user@host.net> writes:
>
>>>Chris
>>>
>>>Best wishes,
>>>
>>>Anyone know the original price?
>>>machines from the period, but never found a firm figure for the Ultra 2.
>>>mouse. I've seen figures into the tens of thousands quoted for other Sun
>>>processor, 512 MB RAM, 2 x 4.2 GB hard disk, 20" monitor, keyboard and
>>>1998 and I believe originally had the following specs: 2 x 300 MHz
>>>department. I've always wondered what it cost new. It dates from early
>>>About 18 months ago I picked up a Sun Ultra 2 free from my university
>>>
>>>Hi,
>>
>><cdt22@cantabgold.net> wrote:
>>On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 12:41:16 +0000 (UTC), Christopher Tidy
>>
>>
>>would seem to suggest somewhere between $10,000 and $60,000
>>
>>http://sunsite.uakom.sk/sunworldonline/swol-11-1995/swol-11-fusion.hardware.html#sidebar1
>>
>>this URL
>
>
> [Please don't top post]
>
> I have an Ultra 2 that I originally bought for a client some 7 or 8
> years ago. When they scrapped it, I got it back for nothing. The 2Gb of
> memory in it cost about £30K, if I remember correctly. I think the box
> itself (2x300MHz ultrasparc, 9Gb disk) cost about £15K, again IIRC.
> (£1 ~= $1.90)
>
> Although these boxes are old and available on eBay for next to nothing,
> they're still useful; mine runs my News server, holds my ripped CD
> collection, runs my email server, stores my digital photograph
> collection, acts as a Samba server for my wife's PC (which I also run
> ThumbsPlus on for the digital piccies), runs the internal web server,
> runs the UPS, runs a web proxy for the PCs, etc., etc. It's running 65
> processes as I type this, including 2 Seti@Homes (one for each
> processor.) I shall be upgrading it to Solaris 10 this week some time
> and installing a DLT tape drive as an upgrade to the 8mm I presently
> use for backups.
>
> I use an Ultra 10 as my desktop machine and a SPARC 10 as my firewall.
> I have a Netra T1 to replace that, since as I understand it, the '10
> won't run Solaris 10. My wife uses an XP PC and I have a Fedora Linux
> box, also.
>
> I didn't pay anything for any of it, other than the PC, other than beer
> to say "Thank you". Personally, I find old Sun kit much preferable to
> run at home than PC hardware, since it ages much more gracefully - an
> old Sun has much more utility than an old PC, especially running a
> proper operating system (IOW, not Windows), and you are effectively
> immune to all the Windows security (non-security!) nonsense running
> round on the 'net. And because people generally don't know what it is,
> you can buy replacement kit on eBay for next to nothing, or if you're
> in the right place at the right time, get given it for nothing...

Thanks for the information. I did some more searching this morning and
turned up this interesting document, which dates from the time the 300
MHz version of the Ultra 2 was released:

http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/1997-04/sunflash.970429.1112.html

The Ultra 2 2300 is quoted as costing $38,495. As my machine is a bit
younger, but has more RAM, I guess it would have cost about the same. Wow!

I've now upgraded the machine to 1280 MB RAM, courtesy of components
that came from Ultra 1s with dead hard drives [all free again :-)]. It
holds its own nicely against modern PCs for day-to-day work. I actually
think it's faster than my father's 2.7 GHz Celeron running XP for most
things :-).

Best wishes,

Chris

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