May 15, 2025

Sun 3/280 -- Power it up!

I took my life in my hands. I turned the Sun 3/280 that has been sitting on top of my file cabinet around so I could get at the connectors. Then I plugged it in and turned it on!

I fully expected fire, smoke, and exploding capacitors. I got nothing of the sort. I hear fans spinning, the LEDs that I can see exhibit what look like normal patterns and it is running!

The machine is in a Sun 3/110 chassis. This box has a power supply and three full size VME slots. The 3/280 has worked fine in this box in time past. Two boards are required. I have the 3/280 board itself and a 16M ECC memory card. I may have another of these memory cards somewhere, but I have no pressing need for the extra memory, so I'll leave it out of the game and avoid needlessly loading down the power supply. I am letting the system run (and perhaps letting old electrolytics reform) as I type this.

There is every chance that this machine has not been powered up since just over 10 years ago (perhaps in 2014). The thing now is to find the necessary cables and see what messages are coming forth.

Cables

I find a USB to RS232 adapter and plug it in. Linux used to show what tty device got set up for it in the log file, but isn't doing that -- but when I unplug it, then it tells me that it is ttyUSB0! I fire up picocom on /dev/ttyUSB0 and set the baud rate to 9600. Now it is trial and error. I find a 25 pin null modem gadget "with handshake", set the diag/norm switch to diag, hit the reset button and I have action, as follows: 
Boot PROM Selftest

PROM Checksum Test
DVMA Reg Test
Context Reg Test
Segment Map Wr/Rd Test
Segment Map Address Test
Page Map Test
Memory Path Data Test
NXM Bus Error Test
Interrupt Test
TOD Clock Interrupt Test
MMU Access Bit Test
MMU Access/Modify Bit Test
MMU Invalid Page Test
MMU Protected Page Test
ECC Error Tests
Cache Data 3 Pat Test
Cache Tags 3 Pat Test
Memory Size = 0x00000010 Megabytes
Initialization ECC Memory  Meg #0x00000010
Memory Test (Testing 0x00000010 MBytes)  Testing Meg #00000010

Selftest passed.

Type a character within 10 seconds to enter Menu Tests...
                                                          (e for echo mode)

Extended Test Menu:  (Enter 'q' to return to Monitor)

Cmd -  Test

ie - Ethernet Test
mk - Mouse/Keyboard Ports Test
rs - Serial Ports Test
Cmd=>
The memory test takes quite a while (but comes out clean!) and I don't really want the self test menu. Now it is a learning process, combined with refreshing really old memories.

Actually, I can just type "q" to the extended tests and get back to the regular monitor prompt. Typing "b" gives me: 

iagnostic Auto-boot in progress...Boot: ie(0,0,0)
ie: No Carrier
ie: No Carrier
Requesting Internet address for 8:0:20:0:4:B1

Send a break

Picocom lets me do this by typing Crtl-A, Ctrl-| -- and it works! Actually, it is even easier - I can type Ctrl-A, Ctrl-\ and avoid having to hold both the shift and ctrl keys.
I get: 
Abort at 0x0FEF6DDE.
>
Now I put the diag switch back into the "norm" position, hit the reset button, then go and send a break, now I get: 
Sun Workstation, Model Sun-3/200 Series.
ROM Rev 3.0, 16MB memory installed, Serial #13355.
Ethernet address 8:0:20:0:4:B1, Host ID 1300342B.

Testing 8 Megabytes of Memory ... Completed.

Auto-boot in progress...

EEPROM boot device...Boot: ie(0,0,0)
ie: No Carrier
This does a very fast memory test, only tests half the memory and immediately launches into the Auto-boot. It would be snappy almost if I had a cable and was set up to boot something.