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From: Tim Bradshaw on 24 Nov 2009 03:49
On 2009-11-23 15:59:51 +0000, Mark <mark.round(a)gmail.com> said:

> "Fast, cheap, and SPARC". Pick any two...

Well, US IV and US IV+ machines ought to be appearing on the
second-hand market now or very soon. Lots of people will be doing
power-reduction exercises moving from these things to T-series systems.

From: Canuck57 on 27 Nov 2009 22:57
Michael Vilain wrote:
> In article <qxmOm.63288$Xf2.4316(a)newsfe12.iad>,
> Canuck57 <Canuck57(a)nospam.com> wrote:
>
>> Dave wrote:
>>> Are there any options for fast single threaded SPARC hardware at a cheap
>>> price (say under �500) used?
>>>
>>> I have a Blade 2000 (2 x 1.2 GHz),
>>>
>>> http://www.sun.com/desktop/workstation/sunblade2000/
>>>
>>> and will no doubt at some point find someone putting a Blade 2500 (2 x
>>> 1.6 GHz)
>>>
>>> http://www.sun.com/desktop/workstation/sunblade2500/
>>>
>>> on eBay at a price they might actually get for it, rather than what they
>>> might hope to get. But are there SPARC options I'm overlooking?
>>>
>>> I recently had a Sun Netra T1
>>>
>>> http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/validateUser.do?target=Systems/Netra_t1
>>> _105/Netra_t1_105
>>>
>>>
>>> destroyed by lightning, and my insurers gave me to money to replace it
>>> with a SPARC based T1000
>>>
>>> http://www.sun.com/servers/coolthreads/t1000/
>>>
>>> which I note is just EOL, though it was not a couple of months back.
>>>
>>> But I know the single threaded performance of a T1000 is going to be
>>> worst than the Blade 2000 and in any case, a mate gave me another Netra T1.
>>>
>>> But the performance of that is pretty poor - *much* worst than the Blade
>>> 2000. But at only 60 W of power, I do not mind keeping the T1 on 24/7.
>>>
>>> I'm just wondering if there are any other models (either server or
>>> workstation), I've overlooked. The 2.52-GHz Sun M3000 Casper mentioned
>>> would be nice, but that's not cheap.
>>>
>>> Ideally a server which I could remotely switch on/off would be nice.
>>> Then I could stuff it in the garage and not hear it. But I'm not too
>>> fussed about that. Just something cheap and with better signle threaded
>>> performance than the Blade 2000.
>>>
>>> I have an Ultra 27, but I spend some of my spare time working on the
>>> Sage project
>>>
>>> http://www.sagemath.org/
>>>
>>> and want to improve the Solaris SPARC support. (It seems a bit silly, as
>>> I will probably never use Sage on SPARC myself much, but I started
>>> helping, and do not intend stopping now).
>>>
>>> I have remote (across the Atlantic) access to a Sun SPARC T5240, but the
>>> single threaded performance of that is very poor. My Blade 2000 is much
>>> quicker than the T5240, despite being several years older and worth only
>>> < 5% the price of a T5240.
>> Why not run Solaris on commodity Intel or AMD processor? Maybe even in
>> a desktop VM? Say Vista Windblows with VirtualBox set to 2 procs.
>>
>> Any code for SageMath should be portable, and shouldn't be an issue.
>> Use the over seas one just for testing.
>>
>> I have a V100, but haven't given it power in two years.
>
> How would running this on an Intel box help Dave develop and debug Sage
> to run on Sparc systems? AFAIK, he's already got Intel boxes. He wants
> a Sparc development platform, or did you miss that part of the thread?

You missed the point. If he develops on Solaris Intel, it should run on
Sparc just fine. I it is C code, just compile, test and run on Sparc.
Then have code that works on both.

If it is Java, no need... it will run.

The only real must have Sparc is for drivers and to the metal work. For
applications, you don't need to have a Sparc chip. Fork(), pthread..()
all work the same. If doing byte work and network packet stuff, learn
up on methods like htons() to get started, which is a good practice when
writing C/C++ and network stuff anyway.
From: Canuck57 on 27 Nov 2009 23:21
Barry OGrady wrote:
> On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:35:01 -0700, Canuck57 <Canuck57(a)nospam.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Dave wrote:
>>> Are there any options for fast single threaded SPARC hardware at a cheap
>>> price (say under �500) used?
>>>
>>> I have a Blade 2000 (2 x 1.2 GHz),
>>>
>>> http://www.sun.com/desktop/workstation/sunblade2000/
>>>
>>> and will no doubt at some point find someone putting a Blade 2500 (2 x
>>> 1.6 GHz)
>>>
>>> http://www.sun.com/desktop/workstation/sunblade2500/
>>>
>>> on eBay at a price they might actually get for it, rather than what they
>>> might hope to get. But are there SPARC options I'm overlooking?
>>>
>>> I recently had a Sun Netra T1
>>>
>>> http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/validateUser.do?target=Systems/Netra_t1_105/Netra_t1_105
>>>
>>>
>>> destroyed by lightning, and my insurers gave me to money to replace it
>>> with a SPARC based T1000
>>>
>>> http://www.sun.com/servers/coolthreads/t1000/
>>>
>>> which I note is just EOL, though it was not a couple of months back.
>>>
>>> But I know the single threaded performance of a T1000 is going to be
>>> worst than the Blade 2000 and in any case, a mate gave me another Netra T1.
>>>
>>> But the performance of that is pretty poor - *much* worst than the Blade
>>> 2000. But at only 60 W of power, I do not mind keeping the T1 on 24/7.
>>>
>>> I'm just wondering if there are any other models (either server or
>>> workstation), I've overlooked. The 2.52-GHz Sun M3000 Casper mentioned
>>> would be nice, but that's not cheap.
>>>
>>> Ideally a server which I could remotely switch on/off would be nice.
>>> Then I could stuff it in the garage and not hear it. But I'm not too
>>> fussed about that. Just something cheap and with better signle threaded
>>> performance than the Blade 2000.
>>>
>>> I have an Ultra 27, but I spend some of my spare time working on the
>>> Sage project
>>>
>>> http://www.sagemath.org/
>>>
>>> and want to improve the Solaris SPARC support. (It seems a bit silly, as
>>> I will probably never use Sage on SPARC myself much, but I started
>>> helping, and do not intend stopping now).
>>>
>>> I have remote (across the Atlantic) access to a Sun SPARC T5240, but the
>>> single threaded performance of that is very poor. My Blade 2000 is much
>>> quicker than the T5240, despite being several years older and worth only
>>> < 5% the price of a T5240.
>> Why not run Solaris on commodity Intel or AMD processor? Maybe even in
>> a desktop VM? Say Vista Windblows with VirtualBox set to 2 procs.
>>
>> Any code for SageMath should be portable, and shouldn't be an issue.
>> Use the over seas one just for testing.
>>
>> I have a V100, but haven't given it power in two years.
>
> I have Solaris 10 running on a Sunfire X1100 which has a dual core
> 2.4Ghz AMD Opteron, with 2G RAM and 2x80G SATA hard drives, and it
> didn't cost very much.
>
> =-=-=
> Barry
> http://members.iinet.net.au/~barry.og

I worked on some M4100's (??) or something like that once. Not too
expensive and had AMD inside. I was impressed at how quick they were.
It was a network cluster type app, and I developed it inside of VMWare
on a laptop, and just moved it to the systems. Worked well. Never even
laid eyes on them as I was 1600 miles away, just used a serial console
and jumpstarted them off a local Sparc with the x86 image.
From: Richard L. Hamilton on 30 Nov 2009 08:34
In article <4b092cac(a)212.67.96.135>,
Dave <foo(a)coo.com> writes:
> Are there any options for fast single threaded SPARC hardware at a cheap price
> (say under �500) used?
>
> I have a Blade 2000 (2 x 1.2 GHz),
>
> http://www.sun.com/desktop/workstation/sunblade2000/
>
> and will no doubt at some point find someone putting a Blade 2500 (2 x 1.6 GHz)
>
> http://www.sun.com/desktop/workstation/sunblade2500/
>
> on eBay at a price they might actually get for it, rather than what they might
> hope to get. But are there SPARC options I'm overlooking?
>
> I recently had a Sun Netra T1
>
> http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/validateUser.do?target=Systems/Netra_t1_105/Netra_t1_105
>
> destroyed by lightning, and my insurers gave me to money to replace it with a
> SPARC based T1000
>
> http://www.sun.com/servers/coolthreads/t1000/
>
> which I note is just EOL, though it was not a couple of months back.
>
> But I know the single threaded performance of a T1000 is going to be worst than
> the Blade 2000 and in any case, a mate gave me another Netra T1.
>
> But the performance of that is pretty poor - *much* worst than the Blade 2000.
> But at only 60 W of power, I do not mind keeping the T1 on 24/7.
>
> I'm just wondering if there are any other models (either server or workstation),
> I've overlooked. The 2.52-GHz Sun M3000 Casper mentioned would be nice, but
> that's not cheap.
>
> Ideally a server which I could remotely switch on/off would be nice. Then I
> could stuff it in the garage and not hear it. But I'm not too fussed about that.
> Just something cheap and with better signle threaded performance than the Blade
> 2000.
>
> I have an Ultra 27, but I spend some of my spare time working on the Sage project
>
> http://www.sagemath.org/
>
> and want to improve the Solaris SPARC support. (It seems a bit silly, as I will
> probably never use Sage on SPARC myself much, but I started helping, and do not
> intend stopping now).
>
> I have remote (across the Atlantic) access to a Sun SPARC T5240, but the single
> threaded performance of that is very poor. My Blade 2000 is much quicker than
> the T5240, despite being several years older and worth only < 5% the price of a
> T5240.

You could probably get remote access to a suitable system cheaper than
you could buy one. There are companies that will make zones on big
systems available for rent, as it were.
From: Dave on 1 Dec 2009 20:21
Mark wrote:
>> I really need to get a faster SPARC platform.
>
> Sadly, I think your post title could be used as a classic example of
> IT compromise :
>
> "Fast, cheap, and SPARC". Pick any two...
>
> :(
>
> -Mark

Actually, I have solved this now, if I substitute 'cheap' for 'free' Dennis
Clark of Blastwave has offered me access to a dual 1.6 GHz SPARC for free.

Dave

--
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