Well, not really that vintage but interesting if you're into history ..and .. if they ever find anything. But the SETI project is selling 3 of their "older" Sun Ultra Enterprise 450 servers. http://www.ebay.com/usr/setiathomecal. Could be an interesting piece of history BUT you have to be local to pick it up (Berkeley, CA).
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(Ends on 12/23/14) Some SETI servers on ebay
- Thread starter barythrin
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Eudimorphodon
Veteran Member
I think I've turned down more free Sun Enterprise servers than I can count, so all I can say is you're definitely buying it for the lab tour.
Eudimorphodon
Veteran Member
Honestly I'm pretty skeptical that they're ever going to be "collectable" in any meaningful sense but I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
(I mean, I'm sure once a sufficiently large-but-arbitrary amount of time has passed any computer from a given period will be worth "something" if only for use as a period prop/conversation piece/end table/whatever, etc, but... fer instance, old pianos by and large ain't worth much unless they're a good brand, and an old piano in working condition retains a far greater fraction of its original utility than an old server does. I'm sure there *are* people out there collecting UNIX servers, in fact I can probably name at least one, but... people collect all sorts of things that are never worth anything.)
(I mean, I'm sure once a sufficiently large-but-arbitrary amount of time has passed any computer from a given period will be worth "something" if only for use as a period prop/conversation piece/end table/whatever, etc, but... fer instance, old pianos by and large ain't worth much unless they're a good brand, and an old piano in working condition retains a far greater fraction of its original utility than an old server does. I'm sure there *are* people out there collecting UNIX servers, in fact I can probably name at least one, but... people collect all sorts of things that are never worth anything.)
g4ugm
Veteran Member
SPARC desktops are already kind of collectable. The OS can be downloaded for non-commercial use. Trouble is old SPARCs are big and not very powerfull....
.... but in 10 years we will be asking why they were not saved
.... but in 10 years we will be asking why they were not saved
toober
Experienced Member
Sun-2 and sun-3 machines used to be as common as flies ten years ago, as well. Today? Not so much...
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Will
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Will
Eudimorphodon
Veteran Member
Sun Workstations, sure, I can see a collecting niche for those; a workstation is a "tactile" thing meant to be seen and used directly by humans and there's a lot of nostalgia value to be had in immersing yourself in their unique UI quirks. The problem with SPARC servers is, well, over a console connection by and large old Solaris is an awful lot like new Solaris, be it on a Sparc or x86 box. (And to a lesser degree, UNIX is UNIX; unless you were running some specific custom/vertical market application that you can't recompile you were probably using it to do something that's easy enough move to something newer with minimal disruption to your workflow. This is of course why Linux on commodity hardware has essentially destroyed the commercial UNIX market outside of some very specific niches.) It's sort of like the difference between collecting classic cars vs. old mining equipment or dump trucks; sure, the latter might be "interesting" but you need a huge garage and it's far less likely you'll impress a casual observer with your collection without having to do a lot of explaining about *what exactly* makes each item special.
Of course, I say this despite totally thinking it'd be cool, if I owned the Biggest Mansion in MansionLand, to have a big PDP-11 or early VAX in a room in the basement running some archaic version of BSD 2.x. I dunno, maybe give those SPARC bricks another 20 years and I'll reconsider.
Of course, I say this despite totally thinking it'd be cool, if I owned the Biggest Mansion in MansionLand, to have a big PDP-11 or early VAX in a room in the basement running some archaic version of BSD 2.x. I dunno, maybe give those SPARC bricks another 20 years and I'll reconsider.