Yeah, It’s a workstation meant to run 24/7/365. It could run software to manage all you corporate computers or fileservers or webservers or network equipment.
Run a database , webserver, etc.

Mission critical corporate services.

Well, they where fun back in the 1990’s.
You could network with Windows-PC’s and play Quake or watch TV with SunTV while working on IT tickets or projects.

Well if you want to Learn UNIX and Oracle database this is a good start.
Oracle database is the worlds #1 database today and is BIG MONEY.

HanJammer wrote:

[...]

I have Ultra 450 and Ultra 5. Very boring machines 😁

Fun fact: the Ultra 5 was built by the same ODM as Packard Bell machines at the time - and it showed. Compared to the earlier Ultra1/2 the 5 was very low-end PC-like in terms of build quality. I believe they changed ODM again soon afterwards, so this Blade 1000 is probably a bit better.

Ironically, all the 'good old' high-quality stuff prior to the Ultra 5 was made from a plastic that has started to crumble with age, where the 'cheap crap' ABS in the Ultra 5 may be yellow as hell, but structurally holds up far better.

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Intel486dx33 wrote:

Yeah, It’s a workstation meant to run 24/7/365. It could run software to manage all you corporate computers or fileservers or we […]
Show full quote

Yeah, It’s a workstation meant to run 24/7/365. It could run software to manage all you corporate computers or fileservers or webservers or network equipment.
Run a database , webserver, etc.

Mission critical corporate services.

Well, they where fun back in the 1990’s.
You could network with Windows-PC’s and play Quake or watch TV with SunTV while working on IT tickets or projects.

Well if you want to Learn UNIX and Oracle database this is a good start.
Oracle database is the worlds #1 database today and is BIG MONEY.

They were apparently heavily used for semiconductor development as high gate counts often required more than the 4GiB per process memory limit of i386.

I refuse to work with Linux computers.
They just don’t have the Prestige of the UNIX shops.

Anders- wrote:

As for solaris not supporting suns own hardware, where did you get that idea? Do you refer to a particular sparc model?

Indeed, current Solaris version (11.4) does support current SPARC hardware, not just x64.
They only removed support for some earlier generations.

Intel486dx33 wrote:

Well if you want to Learn UNIX and Oracle database this is a good start.
Oracle database is the worlds #1 database today and is BIG MONEY.

With the stuff Oracle is offering now in the OCI (like automatic databases) It may not be for long...

dionb wrote:

HanJammer wrote:

[...]

I have Ultra 450 and Ultra 5. Very boring machines 😁

Fun fact: the Ultra 5 was built by the same ODM as Packard Bell machines at the time - and it showed. Compared to the earlier Ultra1/2 the 5 was very low-end PC-like in terms of build quality. I believe they changed ODM again soon afterwards, so this Blade 1000 is probably a bit better.

Ironically, all the 'good old' high-quality stuff prior to the Ultra 5 was made from a plastic that has started to crumble with age, where the 'cheap crap' ABS in the Ultra 5 may be yellow as hell, but structurally holds up far better.

Yeah, I agree. Also Ultra 5 is looking very PC-like inside - PCI slots, IDE drives and so on...

Grzyb wrote:

Anders- wrote:

As for solaris not supporting suns own hardware, where did you get that idea? Do you refer to a particular sparc model?

Indeed, current Solaris version (11.4) does support current SPARC hardware, not just x64.
They only removed support for some earlier generations.

I was refering to UltraSPARC III because that's what this thread is about, isn't it? But yeah, I didn't stated it clearly.

dionb wrote:

HanJammer wrote:

[...]

I have Ultra 450 and Ultra 5. Very boring machines 😁

Fun fact: the Ultra 5 was built by the same ODM as Packard Bell machines at the time - and it showed. Compared to the earlier Ultra1/2 the 5 was very low-end PC-like in terms of build quality. I believe they changed ODM again soon afterwards, so this Blade 1000 is probably a bit better.

Ironically, all the 'good old' high-quality stuff prior to the Ultra 5 was made from a plastic that has started to crumble with age, where the 'cheap crap' ABS in the Ultra 5 may be yellow as hell, but structurally holds up far better.

People bitch about the Ultra 5 because it had a cheap ATI video chip and was the first to use ATA/IDE for the HD and optical drive. I have an Ultra 5 and I stuck in a UWSCSI controller that is bootable with a 146GB HD. The case isn't yellowed much. Too bad I can't stick a graphics card in there (they are meant for the towers so even though the slot is on the motherboard the desktop case configuration doesn't not support it).

Intel486dx33 wrote:

I refuse to work with Linux computers.
They just don’t have the Prestige of the UNIX shops.

That's a bit of an odd statement. Linux runs on a whole host of architectures. From Supercomputers to rPis. It's certainly worth getting a little experience with it even as a hobbyist. Once you get the hang of the directory structure, work out how VTs function and the way repositories work it's not that difficult. Running things in Xorg/Xwindows is generally breeze. Has been for a long time.

I've been looking for a machine like this for some time now, and nothing is popping up on my local classifieds. Don't let this pass by! It's an incredible machine.

What can you do with it? If you don't want to run Linux on it, and would prefer a modern completely up to date UNIX, OpenBSD would run flawlessly on it with their Sparc64 port.

This machine is not susceptible to the Specter and Meltdown bugs. It should have plenty of power to run a web-browser, but where it really shines is its industrial grade components and incredible build quality. Granted it's not as bomb proof as the 80 and 90's SPARCstations, but it's close. It is not as junky as the Ultra 5 by any stretch.

Good luck!

Fun fact Solaris worked faster on x86 architecture than Sun architecture.