From: earle@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov (Greg Earle - Gainfully Unemployed)
Subject: Anyone know anything about TriGem SPARCstation clones?
Followup-To: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Summary: Info request
Reply-To: isolar!earle@elroy.JPL.NASA.GOV
Organization: Gainfully unemployed
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 09:08:56 GMT

[Originally posted to sun-managers, but this may be a more appropriate place.]

I just purchased a SPARCstation-1 clone machine manufactured by TriGem.  It's
called a "TriGem TGstation SDT-200", and I would be interested to hear from
anyone who is familiar with these machines; specifically, I'm trying to clarify
these things which are different from normal Sun SPARCstation-1's:

- This is the same TriGem company from Korea that bankroll(s)/(ed) RDI, yes?

- What motherboard do they use?  I suspect it is the LSI Logic SPARCkit, but
  would like to know for sure.  Specifically, differences that I noted were:

        (a) It has 2 8-pin DIN serial ports instead of DB-25 connectors; it
            has a mechanical ball mouse instead of an optical one, and it uses
            a 20" Philips monitor instead of a 19" Sony/Hitachi/etc.
        (b) It seems to support Synchronous SCSI, even though I thought only
             the SPARCstation-1+ (and later) Sun motherboards supported it
        (c) The floppy controller seems to be a different chip, and the O/S
             that comes on it (4.1.1) seems to have replacement versions of
             autoconf.o, fd.o, and fd_asm.o (in /usr/kvm/sys/sun4c/OBJ).  I'm
             therefore now afraid to upgrade the O/S to 4.1.3 or 5.1 because
             I'm afraid the floppy will stop working.  Doing a strings on the
             supplied FCS fd.o and the replacement fd.o shows:

***************
*** 15,17 ****
  & $!
! @(#)fd.c 1.46 90/08/31 SMI
  read_track
--- 17,19 ----
  & $!
! @(#)fd.c 1.5 90/10/29 SMI
  read_track
***************
*** 85,86 ****
--- 87,89 ----
  fdrawioctl: dev=0x%x cmd[0]=0x%x
+ fdrawioctl: MT option not supported
  cmd: %x %x %x %x %x %x %x %x %x %x
***************
*** 97,98 ****
--- 100,103 ----
  fdcheckdisk no disk
+ floppy chip: 82072
+ floppy chip: 82077
  fdselect, unit %d, on = %d
... (etc.) ...

        (d) I believe a SPARCstation-1 motherboard has 16 memory slots, but
             can only support 1 Mb 100 ns SIMMs.  This motherboard has only
             12 memory slots, but the blurb claims that it can support 4 Mb
             SIMMs.  Does this make the motherboard effectively an IPC-style
             equivalent, or a 1+ equivalent with a slower processor?  If it
             can, indeed, support 4 Mbyte SIMMs, what speed SIMMs can/must be
             used?  (And where's a cheap source for 'em (-: )

        (e) What PROMs does it use?  I would like to know if they are custom
            versions of the normal Sun Forth Open Boot PROMs, or if they are
            Real Live Sun PROMs.  Doing a ".version" in the PROM yields

                Release 1.0
                Version 200 created 90/09/16 12:00:00

            Obviously, with a PROM rev. saying "1.0" and which is over two
            years old, I'd like to know if I can replace them with whatever the
            current Sun PROMs are for a 4/60 (2.3?  Or was it 2.6 ... ).

            Related to the PROM; why did they make their hostid claim it is a
            Sun-4 (my hostid is "200xxxxx") instead of a Sun-4c?

- Related to this, I'm thinking of buying an Exabyte EXB-8500ST 5 Gb 8mm tape
  drive; this unit appears to have been built directly by Exabyte themselves.
  It has the "normal" Centronics-style SCSI connectors on the back.  Has anyone
  had any problems using such a drive on any Sun-4/4c machine, clones or not?
  Any firmware incompatibilities?  Any problems with those Centronics-style
  terminators possibly not being "active" terminators, etc.?

- Last but not least, anyone know cheap sources for used Sun CD-ROM drives? (-:

Thanks in advance for any information anyone can provide ...

--
        - Greg Earle
          Itinerant Sun Consultant
          isolar!earle@elroy.JPL.NASA.GOV       (Preferred)