SPARCStation IPX

I really enjoy the lunchbox form factor of the IPX. I purchased this SPARCStation IPX on ebay as untested, but it did say it powered on. My system came with a dummy load installed where the hard disk would be, so I'm assuming it never had a hard disk and net booted Sun OS when it was in service.

I installed a 2.1 GB Hard disk and purchased a SCSI cable for it. Of course, the NVRAM battery was dead. I repaired it by bypassing the internal battery and installing an external battery holder as described on this page. Sun NVRAM Repair

The system currently has 40MB of RAM and is running SunOS 4.1.4, the last release of the BSD based operating system by Sun. The GUI on SunOS is pretty simplistic compared to the later versions of Solaris, but it works. I compiled some modern tools for it including bash, tar, gzip, and others. Its definitely the slowest workstation I have, but I enjoy messing around with it.

External Hard Disk

I really like the form factor, so I purchased an external hard disk on eBay to go with it. This disk was sold as *not working, does not power up*. When it arrived, I opened up the PSU and saw what I expected—leaking capacitors. I ordered replacements on DigiKey for the four large capacitors and replaced them. Luckily, that was the only issue with the power supply.