Got an Ultra 5, now what?
 

Alright I've been using PCs for as long as i can remember. Today at work we upgraded our server, and my manager gave me the old machine.. just to play around with. It's a Sun Ultra 5 workstation. The only spec I know so far is that it has 256mb RAM - no idea how fast the processor is, or how big the HD is. The rest of the specs are standard I think - 48x CD, audio and video, etc.

So my problem is upon setting it up, I found that I can't get the display to show anything. I made sure that I didn't need a special adapter, and sure enough Ultra 5s and 10s do not need any VGA adapter but other Ultras do. I tried a couple different monitors, one older 15" and a new 19", as well as a 15" LCD. No luck with any of them. The monitor isn't recieving any signal. Any ideas? I'm afraid this is something uber simple like hitting a key combination or something.

I would ask my manager for help but he just went off to Hawaii on a backpacking trip (lucky bastard).

Anyway after I get past this, I'm probably going to reformat it and reinstall the original software. My manager didn't have any of the disks that came with the machine. I read that these "restore disk" type things Sun has are around $100. Is there anyway I can reformat and reinstall without throwing down $100?

you could just install linux on it instead of solaris, or look for a copy of solaris on ebay.

Sorry I can't help any further, the sun site is a bitch to navigate.

Have you connected a keyboard to it? If not, then everything is going out the serial port.

If you have connected a keyboard, then disconnect the keyboard and connect a null modem and serial cable. See if anything comes through there using any terminal program (or preferably, a real dumb term).

Yeah I have a keyboard plugged in, so I'll try the null modem etc. Linux is a good idea... I don't know why I didn't think of that.

Yeah Sun's site is a pain in the ass.

Thanks for the suggestions.

You can download ISO's of Solaris free "for personal use only"
directly from somewhere inside sun.com

Current version (9) is two discs.

Oh, and if you decide you don't want to keep it, I'll take it ;)