Archive-name: sun2-hdwr-ref/part1
Posting-Frequency: as revised
Version: $Id: $

                      THE SUN-2 HARDWARE REFERENCE
                     compiled by James W. Birdsall
                        (jwbirdsa@picarefy.com)


TABLE OF CONTENTS
=================

        FILE            SECTIONS
        --------------- --------------------------
        part1           TABLE OF CONTENTS
                        INTRODUCTION
                        OFFICIAL HOME OF THIS REFERENCE
                        HOW TO USE THE REFERENCE
                        MODELS SUMMARY
                          Introduction
                          FAQ
                          Sun-1 Family
                          Sun-2 Family
                          Overview by Model
                            Sun-1 Models
                            Sun-2 Models

        part2           HARDWARE
                          Boards
                            CPUs
                              Introduction
                              FAQ
                              Overview by Model
                              Listing by Part Number
                                Legend
                                Parts

        part3               Memory
                              Introduction
                              FAQ
                              Listing by Part Number
                                Legend
                                Parts
                            Video
                              Introduction
                              FAQ
                              Standards
                                BW
                                MG
                                CG
                                GP
                              Listing by Part Number
                                Legend
                                Parts

                            SCSI controllers
                            Non-SCSI disk controllers
                            Tape controllers
                            Communications (serial, Ethernet, etc.)
                            Floating-point/system accelerators
                            Hard drive SCSI converters
                            Backplanes
                            Other

                          Mass Storage
                            SCSI overview
                            Hard drives
                              SMD
                              MFM
                              ESDI
                            Tape drives
                              Tape formats
                              9-track
                              QIC-11
                              QIC-24
                            Other

                          Keyboards
                          Mice

                          Monitors

                        SPECIAL TOPICS
                          Connector Glossary
                          Board Cross-compatibility
                          Busses
                          Cardcage Configuration
                          Pinout Summary
                            Ethernet
                            Video
                            Keyboard and Mouse
                            Serial
                            SCSI
                          Diagnostic LED Summary

                        SOFTWARE
                          Boot ROM
                            Compatibility
                          SunOS Compatibility
                          Sun-2 SunOS Tapes
                          Installing SunOS 3.x (and 4.0.x?)

                        SOURCES
                          Bibliography
                          Contributors
                          Other Resources

                        PART NUMBER INDEX


INTRODUCTION
============

   This is the Sun-2 Hardware Reference, which attempts to provide as
much information as possible about older Sun-badged hardware and
hardware commonly used with older Sun workstations. The primary audience
for this reference is buyers and collectors of used Sun hardware, much
of which comes without documentation. The focus of the reference is the
Sun-1 family (to the extent that information about these units is even
available!) and the Sun-2 family, and hardware used with them. In some
cases, there is overlap with later product lines. Note that this
reference does not attempt to cover all hardware which *can* be used
with Sun-1's or Sun-2's, although it mentions known instances of upward
compatibility; it covers the hardware which a buyer or collector is
likely to encounter when obtaining a used machine from the original
purchaser.

   THERE IS NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND on the information in this document.
It has been assembled from a variety of sources of varying reliability.
Efforts have been made to exclude information known to be incorrect, and
to include only information deemed reasonably reliable, but there is no
guarantee on any of it, especially since official Sun documents
occasionally contradict each other or are just plain incorrect.

   This document is copyright (c) 1995, 1996, 1997 by James W. Birdsall.
You may distribute it freely in unmodified form.

   THIS DOCUMENT IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. I still have a lot of
information which I have not had time to integrate yet. However, I am
always looking for more -- if you have documentation for systems or
boards not listed here, please let me know!


OFFICIAL HOME OF THIS DOCUMENT
==============================

   The official home of this document is ftp.picarefy.com, available via
anonymous FTP in the /pub/Sun-Hardware-Ref directory. My connection to
the outside world is slow, so you may want to try one of the sites
listed below.

   It is also available via anonymous FTP from:

        ftp.intnet.net          /pub/SUN/Sun-Hardware-Ref
        ftp.chicks.net          /pub/unix/sun-hardware

   IF YOU GOT THIS DOCUMENT FROM ANYWHERE ELSE, IT IS AN UNOFFICIAL
SITE! There is no guarantee that this is the latest version (which may
contain significant and important changes).

   If you wish to make the Sun Hardware Reference available on your
site, please contact me at jwbirdsa@picarefy.com and I will put you on
the mailing list. You will be notified whenever a new version is ready.


HOW TO USE THE REFERENCE
========================

   This document is broadly divided into a few high-level categories
(model summary, hardware, special topics, etc.), each of which is
divided into more specific sections and sometimes even subsections.

   Each section or subsection normally consists of:

        + an introduction
        + a FAQ
        + an overview by model
        + any special topics related to the subject
        + a listing by part number

   So, for example, to find out:

        + what models can use the same memory, look under
          "HARDWARE/Boards/Memory/Overview by Model".

        + about SCSI ID settings, look under "HARDWARE/Mass Storage/SCSI
          Overview".

        + how many colors a "cgtwo" framebuffer supports, look under
          "HARDWARE/Boards/Video/Standards".

        + how to arrange boards in your VME-based machine, look under
          "SPECIAL TOPICS/Cardcage Configuration" (to find out what VME
          is, look under "SPECIAL TOPICS/Busses").

        + the pinout of your system's serial port, look under "SPECIAL
          TOPICS/Pinout Summary".

        + what a xxx-xxxx (e.g. 501-1007) is and details about it, look
          in the "PART NUMBER INDEX". If there is any information about
          that part in the Reference, that index will tell you what
          section to look in (and may at least give you a name for the
          item even if no other information is known). Once you know the
          section, check the "Listing by Part Number" under that
          section.

   I have attempted to crossreference items as much as possible. So, if
you went looking for a serial port pinout under "HARDWARE/Boards/CPUs
/Listing by Part Number/xxx-xxxx", you would find a pointer to "SPECIAL
TOPICS/Pinout Summary".


MODELS SUMMARY
==============

    Introduction
    ------------

   Sun's workstations can be broadly divided into five families: Sun-1,
Sun-2, Sun-3, Sun386i, and Sun-4. The first three use successive
generations of the Motorola 680x0 microprocessor. The Sun386i family
was an abortive attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the Intel
80386 in IBM PC-compatibles. With the Sun-4 family, Sun moved to a RISC
microprocessor of their own design, the SPARC.

    FAQ
    ---

1)  How do I tell what model I have?
2)  What's the first/last version of SunOS for my sun2?


1)  How do I tell what model I have?

        It isn't necessarily easy.

        Later models (most Sun-3's and later) usually have a model
        designation on the chassis. However, in many cases there is
        nothing tying a particular chassis to a particular motherboard
        or CPU, and that's what really determines what model a
        particular machine is. This is especially true for VME-based
        chassis, where CPUs could be swapped with ease, frequently
        creating combinations which Sun never intended.

        There are two ways to really be sure what you have: 1) look up
        the part number on the CPU board or 2) watch the machine boot
        from being powered off -- the boot ROM should display a banner
        which indicates what model (or family, in the case of CPUs which
        could be used in many models) the CPU belongs to.

        That's all you really need to know. If you're curious, you can
        check the list of official models below to see if anything
        matches what you have.

2)  What's the first/last version of SunOS for my sun2?

        All Sun-2 machines have the same kernel architecture ("sun2")
        and run the same versions of SunOS.

        SunOS was originally written for the Sun-2 (and Sun 100U, which
        is actually a Sun-2 CPU), so the first official version of SunOS
        for the Sun-2 is 1.0.

        The last version is 4.0.3. Note that SunOS 4.x for Sun-2's is
        only known to exist on QIC-24 tapes, not QIC-11 (which was the
        standard for Sun-2's). Hence, installing SunOS 4.x will require
        a QIC-24 drive (most easily acquired from a Sun-3, where it was
        the standard) and boot ROM version 1.1.2, which is required to
        boot from a QIC-24 drive. Depending on the part number of your
        CPU board, it may be necessary to move a jumper as well in order
        to install and run SunOS 4.x.

    Sun-1 Family
    ------------

   Sun-1's were the very first models ever produced by Sun. The earliest
ran Unisoft V7 UNIX; SunOS 1.x was introduced later. According to some
sources, fewer than 200 Sun-1's were ever produced; they are certainly
rare. The switch from Motorola 68000's to 68010's occurred during the
Sun-1's reign.

   68000-based Sun-1's are not supported by SunOS.

   From bjork@rahul.net (../Steven):

        [The Sun-1] did not have the DVMA of the sun2 architecture.
        There was an even earlier board that had the 68000, not the
        68010. The 68000 board was licensed by Stanford to several folks
        (can't recall names). The original cisco CPU was a slightly
        upgraded 68000 version. Andy Bechtolsheim was using SUDS on the
        triple-I in the CS Dungeon (Margaret Jacks Hall) when my boss
        asked him to modify the sun board to accept 256K RAM chips. I
        handed Andy a pencil and the schematics and he scribbled the
        mods on it. I took the mods, and with Exacto knife and jumpers,
        modified a sun board for the 256K chips. Len Bosack then took
        the mods and re-layed out the PC. That board was the first cisco
        CPU, and was also produced internally to Stanford.

        [...]

        The original sun lacked the DVMA and thus needed Multibus
        memory. Their "ar" tape controller design thus included 256K of
        Multibus memory. When upgraded to a sun2, one had to switch this
        ar-resident memory off since it would conflict with the DVMA
        memory on the sun2 P2 (memory bus).

    Sun-2 Family
    ------------

   Sun-2's were introduced in the early 1980's and were Sun's first
major commercial success. While not as popular or as common as the later
Sun-3's, they did well and there are still quite a few in circulation in
the home/collector-used market.

   All Sun-2's are based on the Motorola 68010 and run SunOS. Early
Sun-2's were Multibus; later models were VME, which Sun continued to use
through the Sun-3 era and well into the Sun-4 line.

   One of the hardest parts of restoring a Sun-2 is finding SunOS tapes
for it. The hardware is usually still in fine working order, but tapes
-- if you can even find any -- are sometimes unreadable after so many
years. (See "SOFTWARE/Sun-2 SunOS Tapes".)

    Overview by Model
    -----------------

   This section lists all the models within each family. They are listed
approximately in order of introduction.

   For each model listed, whatever information is available is given, in
the following order:

   Processor: Microprocessor followed by its clock speed in MHz.

   CPU or motherboard: The Sun part number of the CPU board or
        motherboard.

   Chassis type:
                + "Rackmount" chassis, as the name suggests, are
                  designed to fit into a standard 19" equipment rack.
                  They usually require clearance over and under the
                  chassis for cooling.
                + "Pizza box" chassis are intended to sit on a desktop,
                  typically underneath the monitor; they are low, wide,
                  and deep. Some pizza boxes (including my 2/50) have a
                  'dimple top', a case top with a circular depression
                  that allows the chassis to serve as a tilt/swivel
                  monitor base directly.
                + "deskside" chassis are large towers that are intended
                  to stand on the floor. Nine-slot Multibus and
                  twelve-slot VME chassis fall into this category.

   Bus: Whatever bus or busses the machine has. Sun-1's and Sun-2's were
        either Multibus or VMEbus.

   Memory: Amount of physical memory the machine can take.

   Notes: General information which does not belong under other
        headings.

        Sun-1 Models
        ------------

    Sun-1

        Processor(s):   68000?
        Notes:          Large black desktop boxes with 17" monitors.
                        Uses the original Stanford-designed video board
                        and a parallel microswitch keyboard (type 1) and
                        parallel mouse (Sun-1).

    100
        Processor(s):   68000? @ 10MHz
        Bus:            Multibus (serial?)
        Notes:          Uses a design similar to original SUN (Stanford
                        University Network) CPU. The version 1.5 CPU can
                        take larger RAMs.

    170
        Processor(s):   68010?
        Bus:            Multibus?
        Chassis type:   rackmount
        Notes:          Server. Slightly different chassis design than
                        2/170.

        Sun-2 Models
        ------------

    2/120
        Processor(s):   68010 @ 10MHz
        CPU:            501-1007/1051
        Chassis type:   deskside
        Bus:            Multibus (9 slots)
        Memory:         7M physical
        Notes:          First machines in deskside chassis. Serial
                        microswitch keyboard (type 2), Mouse Systems
                        optical mouse (Sun-2).

    2/100U
        Processor(s):   68010 @ 10MHz
        CPU:            501-1007
        Bus:            Multibus
        Notes:          Upgraded Sun 100. Replaced CPU and memory boards
                        with first-generation Sun-2 CPU and memory
                        boards so original customers could run SunOS
                        1.x. Still has parallel kb/mouse interface so
                        type 1 keyboards and Sun-1 mice could be
                        connected.

    2/150U
        Notes:          Apparently also an upgraded Sun-1.

    2/170
        Chassis type:   rackmount
        Bus:            Multibus (15 slots)
        Notes:          Rackmount version of 2/120, with more slots.

    2/50
        Processor(s):   68010 @ 10MHz
        CPU:            501-1141/1142/1143/1426/1427/1428
        Chassis type:   wide pizza box
        Bus:            VME (2 slots)
        Memory:         7M physical
        Notes:          The (type 2) keyboard and mouse attach via an
                        adapter that accepts two modular plugs and
                        attaches to a DB15 port; later on, units were
                        apparently shipped with type 3 keyboards. The
                        CPU boards have a double-width back panel but
                        are otherwise identical to those in the 2/130
                        and 2/160.

    2/130
    2/160
        Processor(s):   68010 @ 10MHz
        CPU:            501-1144/1145/1146/1429/1430/1431
        Chassis type:   deskside
        Bus:            VME (12 slots)
        Memory:         7M physical
        Notes:          First machine in 12-slot deskside VME chassis.
                        Has four-fan cooling tray instead of six as in
                        later machines, which led to cooling problems
                        with lots of cards. Backplane has only four P2
                        memory connectors bussed instead of six as in
                        later 12-slot backplanes; SCSI passthrough is in
                        slot 6 instead of 7 as in later 12-slot
                        backplanes. Upgradeable to a 3/160 by replacing
                        the CPU board. No information on the differences
                        between the 2/130 and the 2/160.

