With Mobility Electronics complete stupidity and ineptitude to even reply
to my customer support requests in recent months, and the continuing
failure of their Solaris 9 Sbus card device driver to work, I've basically
had enough of their software not working and have all but dumped any
possibility of getting modems to work with the dial-up server machine
again. Since changing from a PCI-based to an Sbus-based Sun machine there
have been no end of problems trying to get modems and serial devices to
work again, even though the setup is the same and apart from device driver
and base hardware platform differences nothing else has altered from a
config point of view.

Is anyone aware of a maker of Sbus serial port cards which still has
current operating system support? I am aware that Sun dumped Sbus support
when they released Solaris 10 so whatever is left over in Solaris 9 is
probably as good as it gets.

Failing being able to use a Sun Sbus card to add serial ports, the other
option is completely rebuilding the machine with an alternative operating
system such as NetBSD which does apparently support the Magma Sbus cards
natively.

The only other possible solution which is going to be doable at little
cost is to get something like a Cisco 2509/2511 or a Lucent Portmaster 2,
and use that to manage modems indirectly to the server machine. That's
something I would have done in the past when I had more than a handful of
modems running full-time with active dial-up connections, but now there is
only two modems.

If you can think of a solution let me know!

Thanks,

Craig.

PS. Also posted at "http://www.sunshack.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=62"

Craig Ian Dewick wrote:
>
> With Mobility Electronics complete stupidity and ineptitude to even
> reply to my customer support requests in recent months, and the
> continuing failure of their Solaris 9 Sbus card device driver to work,
> I've basically had enough of their software not working and have all but
> dumped any possibility of getting modems to work with the dial-up server
> machine again. Since changing from a PCI-based to an Sbus-based Sun
> machine there have been no end of problems trying to get modems and
> serial devices to work again, even though the setup is the same and
> apart from device driver and base hardware platform differences nothing
> else has altered from a config point of view.
>
> Is anyone aware of a maker of Sbus serial port cards which still has
> current operating system support? I am aware that Sun dumped Sbus
> support when they released Solaris 10 so whatever is left over in
> Solaris 9 is probably as good as it gets.
>
> Failing being able to use a Sun Sbus card to add serial ports, the other
> option is completely rebuilding the machine with an alternative
> operating system such as NetBSD which does apparently support the Magma
> Sbus cards natively.
>
> The only other possible solution which is going to be doable at little
> cost is to get something like a Cisco 2509/2511 or a Lucent Portmaster
> 2, and use that to manage modems indirectly to the server machine.
> That's something I would have done in the past when I had more than a
> handful of modems running full-time with active dial-up connections, but
> now there is only two modems.
>
> If you can think of a solution let me know!
>
> Thanks,
>
> Craig.
>
> PS. Also posted at "http://www.sunshack.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=62"

Most Sun have two serial ports. If you only have two modems ..

Could you use a couple of machines if you need more? SPARC 20's are as
cheap as chips now.

Are there no PCI cards that will do this and swap the machine for a PCI
one?

Just a few thoughts...


--
Dave K MCSE.

MCSE = Minefield Consultant and Solitaire Expert.

Please note my email address changes periodically to avoid spam.
It is always of the form: month-year@domain. Hitting reply will work
for a couple of months only. Later set it manually.

http://witm.sourceforge.net/ (Web based Mathematica front end)

On 2006-07-21, Craig Ian Dewick <craig@jedi.apana.org.au> wrote:

> Is anyone aware of a maker of Sbus serial port cards which still has
> current operating system support? I am aware that Sun dumped Sbus support
> when they released Solaris 10 so whatever is left over in Solaris 9 is
> probably as good as it gets.

Sun hasn't dumped SBus support. They have dropped some device support
however I've got a pair of Ultra-2 boxes that are very much alive. Most
of the "dumped" items include such stellar items as 10Mbit ethernet
and crusty narrow SCSI chipsets, neither of which sits well in a Sol 10
machine anyway. Sun hardware has depreciated so much in the last few
years I'd consider an Ultra-60 a minimal play machine now.

> Failing being able to use a Sun Sbus card to add serial ports, the other
> option is completely rebuilding the machine with an alternative operating
> system such as NetBSD which does apparently support the Magma Sbus cards
> natively.

I believe the Sun serial cards still work fine, so that'd be the best
option. They couldn't possibly cost more than $20 second hand including
the external box and cabling.

> The only other possible solution which is going to be doable at little
> cost is to get something like a Cisco 2509/2511 or a Lucent Portmaster 2,
> and use that to manage modems indirectly to the server machine. That's
> something I would have done in the past when I had more than a handful of
> modems running full-time with active dial-up connections, but now there is
> only two modems.

Keeping the Sun theme, a Xylogic/Bay/Nortel Annex should also be near
worthless these days.

If you can't find any of the parts, I'm pretty sure my box o' Sun bits
would have the required parts which I'd be happy to dispose of at beer
compensation rates, mostly to cover the hideous queues in the post
office.

--
Andre.

"Dave (from the UK)" <see-my-signature@southminster-branch-line.org.uk> writes:

>Most Sun have two serial ports. If you only have two modems ..

Yes I've been trying that option out - something isn't setting up the ports
correctly so the 'mgetty' software is unable to get commands to/from the
modems to set up the config in response to the modem sending back a 'RING'
message.

>Could you use a couple of machines if you need more? SPARC 20's are as
>cheap as chips now.

Indeed.

>Are there no PCI cards that will do this and swap the machine for a PCI
>one?

Yes - I actually have a Magma 4-port and 16-port PCI card here. The PCI
version of Magma's Solaris 9 driver works flawlessly. One thing I thought of
doing is getting a cheap Netra t105 (which has a single PCI slot) to replace
the server hardware again, and putting a Magma card into that.

It's just the Solaris 9 Sbus driver that isn't working right, and Mobility's
people don't seem to care which in a way isn't surprising as one of the
first things they did after being out the old Magma was drop the Sbus
products. Neither the Sbus or PCI cards are even mentioned in the main
product section of the website now...

Craig.
--
Craig Dewick - http://lios.apana.org.au/~craig http://jedi.apana.org.au/~craig
Email to craig.foo@bar.lios.apana.org.au - craig.dewick.foo@bar.gmail.com
Always striving for a secure long-term future in an insecure short-term world
Have you exported a crypto system today? Do your bit to undermine the NSA.

On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 15:28:41 +1000, Craig Ian Dewick wrote:

>
> With Mobility Electronics complete stupidity and ineptitude to even reply
> to my customer support requests in recent months, and the continuing
> failure of their Solaris 9 Sbus card device driver to work, I've basically
> had enough of their software not working and have all but dumped any
> possibility of getting modems to work with the dial-up server machine
> again. Since changing from a PCI-based to an Sbus-based Sun machine there
> have been no end of problems trying to get modems and serial devices to
> work again, even though the setup is the same and apart from device driver
> and base hardware platform differences nothing else has altered from a
> config point of view.
>
> Is anyone aware of a maker of Sbus serial port cards which still has
> current operating system support? I am aware that Sun dumped Sbus support
> when they released Solaris 10 so whatever is left over in Solaris 9 is
> probably as good as it gets.
>

I used a Sbus serial card from Performance Technologies [www.pt.com] a few
years ago in a Sparc 5 running Solaris 9. It had no problems that I saw,
it had the big 8 port cable hanging off the back, not as slick as the
RJ-45 ports on the Magma but it did work so I thought I'd mention it.

-Mike

I realize its only 2 more ports vs +16 or whatever the magma car
provides but its better then 2 ports only

I was wondering what sbus platform you were using ... I recently adde
an elite3d horizontal UPA to my Ultra 2, besides getting some reall
nice graphics, I had the bonus of 2 more serial ports ..

Craig Ian Dewick wrote:
> With Mobility Electronics complete stupidity and ineptitude to even reply
> to my customer support requests in recent months, and the continuing
> failure of their Solaris 9 Sbus card device driver to work, I've basically
> had enough of their software not working and have all but dumped any
> possibility of getting modems to work with the dial-up server machine
> again. Since changing from a PCI-based to an Sbus-based Sun machine there
> have been no end of problems trying to get modems and serial devices to
> work again, even though the setup is the same and apart from device driver
> and base hardware platform differences nothing else has altered from a
> config point of view.
>
> Is anyone aware of a maker of Sbus serial port cards which still has
> current operating system support? I am aware that Sun dumped Sbus support
> when they released Solaris 10 so whatever is left over in Solaris 9 is
> probably as good as it gets.
>
> Failing being able to use a Sun Sbus card to add serial ports, the other
> option is completely rebuilding the machine with an alternative operating
> system such as NetBSD which does apparently support the Magma Sbus cards
> natively.
>
> The only other possible solution which is going to be doable at little
> cost is to get something like a Cisco 2509/2511 or a Lucent Portmaster 2,
> and use that to manage modems indirectly to the server machine. That's
> something I would have done in the past when I had more than a handful of
> modems running full-time with active dial-up connections, but now there is
> only two modems.
>
> If you can think of a solution let me know!

Chuck a few old Stallion EasyTerm servers onto the thing?

Mark Addinall.

>
> Thanks,
>
> Craig.
>
> PS. Also posted at "http://www.sunshack.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=62"