SPARCBook 1 (tadpole)… can be repaired? worth repairing? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: worsthorse
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2020, 03:01:57 am
content: Although I have several vintage laptops, they are purpose-specific; I use them to run DOS and Win3.1 software I can't easily run any other way, so I am not really a vintage computing guy. That said, I also have a SPARC 1 laptop that powers up and boots along with a set of manuals and a couple of CDs. The first issue with it is the screen backlight isn't working, so its a little hard to see the screen or do anything useful. The second issue is the login/password, of course, I do not know.While it would kind of cool to have a working Sparcbook (I guess), I am not sure (a) it can be fixed, (b) how to get around the login issue, (c) whether it is work fixing.Any vintage Sparc gurus here want to take a shot at answering any or all of these questions? I'd be happy to post the configuration and more details of what I actually have if anyone is interested.

author: guenthert
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2020, 04:48:35 pm
content: Quote from: worsthorse on April 17, 2020, 03:01:57 amUh, hard to fathom, but I take your word for it.Quote from: worsthorse on April 17, 2020, 03:01:57 amTake out the hard drive (I'm sure that'll be an IDE drive) and connect it to a PC running Linux. I'm fairly sure it will be able to mount the UFS file system (some coaxing might be necessary as Solaris used a different partition table format as DOS/Linux). Then it's just a matter of editing the password file.Quote from: worsthorse on April 17, 2020, 03:01:57 amDunno. It'll be slow by today's standards and even in its heyday, only few cared for Solaris as desktop. One would think that any application worth using had been ported to a contemporary OS meanwhile. This seems far into the curiosity territory.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2020, 05:07:47 pm
content: Of course it can be fixed, backlight problems are normally not difficult to figure out, usually it's either the CCFL tube or the inverter. The work tends to be a bit fiddly though so if you've never done it before you'll want to find someone with experience to help you or practice on some less unique laptops.That's a totally cool vintage machine and quite rare, I've known they existed but never seen one in the flesh. I'd love to have one but I suspect a more serious collector would be willing to pay more.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2020, 05:12:48 pm
content: Quote from: guenthert on April 17, 2020, 04:48:35 pmIIRC these use 2.5" SCSI hard drives, they were never common at all, the only other place I've seen them is in early Macbooks.

author: worsthorse
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2020, 06:11:56 pm
content: Quote from: guenthert on April 17, 2020, 04:48:35 pmYeah, I know. Maybe better to say: it works and I am too lazy to invest time finding another way to run this software.Now, why I didn't think of that I don't know but thank you, because I didn't think of that.And yeah, great performance isn't a reason to fix it, that's for sure. It is more of ataint a lot of these around and getting it working might be kind of fun even if it isn't terribly useful.kind of thing, like some of the test equipment I own.Thanks for the help.

author: worsthorse
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2020, 06:16:23 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on April 17, 2020, 05:07:47 pmThanks. I will poke around and see if I can find someone to help me with it. I am always reluctant to start taking stuff apart without schematics to guide me but that sound like what needs to be done.I worked as a design engineer for a competitor to Sun in the opening years of the unix workstation craze so I am finding the urge to get it running almost irresistable.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2020, 11:39:43 pm
content: I love the old Sun hardware and have several SparcStations including an IPC and IPX. Never saw one of the laptops though, they were the stuff of legends back in their day. Exotic machines with a price to match.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2020, 04:07:13 am
content: Well, this is not Sun hardware. Sun never made a laptop, only the Voyager, which was more of a lunchbox.The SPARCbooks were made by Tadpole. Maybe you could tell us if that's really what you have, and what model it is.The SunOS/Solaris version would help too.

author: worsthorse
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2020, 08:45:43 pm
content: No it is not sun hardware. I just assumed that anyone responding would know that it is from tadpole, sorry.It is a sparcbook 1, running SunOS 4.1.2 (Sparcbook B.0.2). It boots to login and and the back light works on boot. It turns off later, which I am guessing is because the previous owner adjusted the settings to save battery. The battery was rotted but I have the original power brick. I don't have an OS CD. I do have the OpenWindows CD. I have copies of the user guide and technical reference, too.So... I need to remove the current root and user login passwords. Sounds like I need to pull the hard drive and mount it on a linux machine to do that. I've been surfing the web looking for people that have one of these. No luck so far.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2020, 09:07:14 pm
content: Quote from: worsthorse on April 18, 2020, 08:45:43 pmCan you just do Pause-A to get to the boot PROM, then boot -s to boot in single user mode?(Nope, because that feature wasn't added until a later SPARCbook model.)

author: worsthorse
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2020, 10:08:40 pm
content: Quote from: edavid on April 18, 2020, 09:07:14 pmNo, Pause-A doesn't seem to work. And if I stop the boot process, I get four options, none of which gives me a way into the PROM.

author: TheSteve
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 19, 2020, 03:34:34 am
content: I had a few Tadpole Sparcbooks, they were pretty sweet in the day. I had them running Solaris 2.6 and 2.7. And as already mentioned, they were SCSI.

author: tkamiya
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2020, 11:47:10 pm
content: I thought it was STOP A, not pause....

author: worsthorse
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 16, 2020, 02:52:42 am
content: Quote from: tkamiya on June 15, 2020, 11:47:10 pmI don't have the Sparcbook in front of me and I am going to assume that I don't know what I am doing (which isn't so far from wrong most of the time)… Where is the STOP key on the Sparcbook 1?And from a previous post… this version doesn't seem to have the boot rom options that are mentioned, so there doesn't seem to be a way to get it into single user boot.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 16, 2020, 04:31:41 am
content: Quote from: worsthorse on June 16, 2020, 02:52:42 amtkamiya is mistaken, or didn't notice that the thread is about SPARCbooks (OP, want to fix the thread subject?).Real Sun keyboards have a STOP/L1 key, which can be used to enter the boot PROM.SPARCbook keyboards don't have the Sun keyboard layout (I guess they didn't want to pay for custom keys). In later models, but apparently not the SPARCbook 1, the PAUSE key has the STOP function.

author: worsthorse
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 16, 2020, 08:44:36 pm
content: Quote from: edavid on June 16, 2020, 04:31:41 amFixed the first post title… you are right it is a sparcbook 1 by tadpole and it has no STOP key. Unfortunately, on this model the STOP A doesn't seem to work and the single user boot mode isn't available.While I am fascinated by it, this is a rabbit hole I am going to avoid falling into. I think I will see if I can find a new home for it.

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 16, 2020, 09:17:32 pm
content: Only briefly ever encountered one of these - never used one but there is a FAQ athttps://oldcomputer.info/portables/sparcbook/sparcbook-faq.pdfwhich you might find interesting.Google is your friend for manualshttp://vtda.org/docs/computing/Tadpole/Sparcbook1UsersGuide.pdfhttps://www.manualslib.com/manual/1000896/Tadpole-Sparcbook-1.htmlFor the later 3 serieshttps://www.manualslib.com/products/Tadpole-Sparcbook-3-Series-8672902.htmlPAUSE-A is, indeed, supposed to get you to the PROM console on the later models. The user guide for the SparcBook1 suggests that there is a "press any key" message during the power on self tests which gets you to a limited monitor.Quote from: edavid on April 18, 2020, 09:07:14 pmTry the "any key" during boot but it is not clear if you can pass boot arguments to the kernel, there should be a menu of various diagnostic things you can do "see the user guide".Oh, BTW if boot -s asks boots to single user mode but asks for the root password to get a shell prompt boot with init=/bin/sh, then when you get a # prompt type "mount -o remount,rw /" to make the root fs writeable.Oh, random thought - it isn't just that the brightness has been turned down by any chance - Alt-ESC-Up and Alt-ESC-Down increase/decrease LCD brightness (and ALT-ESC-Left/Right alter the contrast).

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 16, 2020, 09:22:34 pm
content: The BIOS on these isn't OpenBoot. They had some horrid remote recovery thing you had to do over TFTP or off floppies. Enjoy thatThink you had to hit a key to stop the boot process after doing Ctrl+Alt+R or something then it gives you a menu.Edit: ah beat me to it. I used one ONCE back in about 1995.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 16, 2020, 09:56:13 pm
content: Quote from: grumpydoc on June 16, 2020, 09:17:32 pmNo, you can't pass boot arguments. There's a menu, but OP already established there's nothing useful on it.

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 16, 2020, 10:33:35 pm
content: Quote from: edavid on June 16, 2020, 09:56:13 pmAh, yes - I missed the brief comment about the menu. It would be interesting to know what the 4 options are.Re-reading I also note the comment that the back light is full brightness initially then lowers - so Alt-ESC-Up/Down might well work to change the brightness (or try Alt-Ctrl-Up/Down).Worth trying it on a network and see if it tries RARP to get an IP address (I'm fairly certain 4.1.2 pre-dates DHCP) - if on a network there are probably exploitable security flaws which might allow access, depending on what services it is running.Otherwise it might well be a case of accessing the disk in another machine.

author: worsthorse
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 17, 2020, 02:07:48 am
content: Thanks all…I have a complete set of hard copy manuals, which I've been through, and unfortunately aren't terribly helpful. It appears the only reasonable way to remove the login is to pull the drive and mount it in a linux system. Just not a project I want to take on right now. So, going to box it up and figure out the best place to offer it for sale.