Sponsored by PCBWay: https://pcbway.com/g/ynWgss
Explore the fascinating world of Sun Microsystems’ SunRay server and thin client technology. This retro computing journey brings the SunRay 1G back to life with a mix of original and improvised parts, tackling installation challenges, network configurations, and compatibility issues along the way.
00:00 Intro
00:56 Introducing SunRay
03:03 A Replacement Stand for the SunRay 1G
05:26 First Power-on Test
05:58 Choosing the SunRay Server release
06:42 SunFire v120 Call-back: Replace the Broken CD-ROM Drive
07:42 Solaris: Applying Recommended Patch Cluster
08:49 Installing SunRay Server 2.0
11:50 Connecting To The Server
12:52 Fixing the Display Resolution – 1st Try
13:28 HotKey Issues with non-Sun Keyboard
15:09 Revisiting the Display Resolution Issue
17:42 Bonus: Software Companion Installer works (previous episode callback)
18:12 Bonus: Windows Media Player on Solaris
19:08 Bonus: IE 5 SP1 Beta works on Solaris (previous episode callback)
19:37 Bonus: Audio Playback on the SunRay Terminal
20:20 Conclusion
21:14 Next on TPC / Outro
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This video was made possible with support by:
THE PHINTAGE ENTHUSIASTS:
Alisha Manuale Stutz @alishamanuelastutz
Christian Zerrahn @JARVIS1187
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xcalibur839 @xcalibur839
Visit also THE PHINTAGE COLLECTOR website at https://www.thephintagecollector.ch for insights into my retro computer collection.
Copyright @ 2024 THE PHINTAGE COLLECTOR, Gianpaolo Del Matto. All rights reserved.
Individual Copyrights apply for referenced material (see links).
Theme Music composed by Abdallah El-Ghannam.
https://www.fiverr.com/abdallahghannam
Additional music featured by rootkitty
Links:
General Information:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Ray
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroSPARC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Fire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARCclassic
SunRay Thin Clients:
https://shrubbery.net/~heas/sun-feh-2_1/Systems/SunRay1/SunRay1.html
https://shrubbery.net/~heas/sun-feh-2_1/Systems/SunRay100/SunRay100.html
https://shrubbery.net/~heas/sun-feh-2_1/Systems/SunRay150/SunRay150.html
SunRay in the media:
https://thejournal.com/articles/2000/09/01/sun-microcomputer-systems.aspx
SunRay 1/1G Replacement Stand on Thingieverse:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5429326
Former SunRay User Group:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070207145317/http://www.sun-rays.org/
SunRay Software Downloads:
https://archive.org/download/sunrayfiles
https://archive.org/details/sunray-server-3.x-4.x-5.x
https://ftp.zx.net.nz/pub/Patches/sun/solaris/
SunRay 1/1G 640×480 Fallback Behaviour:
https://forums.oracle.com/ords/apexds/post/sunray-1g-model-102-display-issues-6170
Various Documentation and Guides:
https://www.filibeto.org/sun/lib/hardware/sunray/3.0/817-6805.pdf
https://imap.filibeto.org/products-n-solutions/hardware/docs/pdf/816-7396-10.pdf
https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E21742_01/PDF/DE/SRSS4dot2InstallGuide(Linux).pdf
https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E22662_01/E22659/html/index.html
https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E25749_01/E25745/html/Clients-Hot-Keys.html
https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19129-01/sunray.svr20/
12 Comments
ah…can smell the Sun Handbooks…😂
I've seen one of these. My cousin's primary school classroom had a few of these, probably due to the DoJ hearing.
Ohh wow
3 youtubers already covering Sun Microsystem this weeks
Clabretro + Action Retro + You
We need an episode hosted by Mr. Know-it-all with you I the window box in the corner 😂
Would be very funny
It's ironic that I'm currently having issues creating a custom resolution for Moonlight/Sunshine to my Tablet. Using X like your old machine, no problem, shame it's impossible under Wayland/KWin (apart from maybe injecting a custom EDID prior to boot as a kernel parameter, but that's a very last resort). Isn't it just great the way things move on 🤣
My experience with thin clients is bad. Probably bandwidth is the biggest problem. Calling home to the server is often NOT productive to the user.
I spent my formative years as a microelectronics+EDA engineer on various Sun systems; I remember how big Sun was in the EDA tradeshows and conferences. In the early 2000, it was simply not feasible to bring your equipment for demos at tradeshows; you lent everything from Sun and they were off-loading the equipment right to your stand. They were able to provide you in advance the actual lmhost id of the rental equipment; this way you could request licenses from your EDA vendor if you needed third-party tools for your demos.
To simplify things wrt. software install and config, we settled on our server that we shipped in advance + a combinations of thin clients/Ultra 5s and monitors (those nice 21' Trinitrons) rented from Sun.
I've used this client in the tradeshows and in office, but I was lucky to spend most of my desk time on an Ultra 10 (which later gained a windows PCI add-on board)
Oh wow. We had JavaStations in college in the CS labs. I’m assuming these are somehow related.
Wow, what a great video, thanks! SunRay here, PDP11+Unibone at Usagi, is it Christmas again? 🤭
12:15 This reminded me at my first attempt on installing Linux back in '98; best I could get was 320:240 displayed of 640:480 screen. For graphics I had i740 which was just released, I doubt that there was proper driver yet.
Back when I was at the university, around 2009-ish, the computer networks lab was full of those Sun thin clients. The variety with an integrated LCD – I'm not sure of the specific model, but they looked like those you show at 1:31, and had one of those funky keyboards like the one from the image at 0:59, complete with that palmrest.
My experience with those back then was… weird. I've only used Windows and Linux until then, so Solaris with CDE was a hell of an acquired taste, and I had that feeling of "nothing works" – the GNU/Linux shell and utilities, even back then, offered a lot of quality of life improvements that I missed in a more old-school Unix environment. I think the web browser on that system was somewhat outdated too. Even worse, I vaguely remember the lab network being a bit finicky, so the terminals would sometimes lock up due to issues with connectivity to the central server. It was quite a mess.
After I finished that course, the department I studied on moved to a new building with all new labs. The new networking lab was full of more traditional Linux desktops and it was definitely a change for the better.
So if you ever run into similar display resolution problems due to missing EDID information again because you're actually using a VGA monitor via an adapter, you could probably use an EDID emulator such as offered by BlackBox to inject proper EDID information into the signal.
They were a pleasure to work with IMHO. We got them when Sun Germany moved to flexible office and it catered very well to that purpose. Wherever I plugged in my smartcard, my session reappeared magically.