Do I HAVE to have a Sun Sparc type keyboard?

Ive got an Ultra Sparc workstation I got from EBAY that was supposted to be working. This box has a PS2 AND Sparc's odd looking keyboard port.

Does my system have a switch in the BIOS simmilar to the x86 "Halt on keyboard error?" ...Or maybe a switch to change from the PS2 to the Sparc KB port?

I have no Sun Sparc Keyboard
and with the ps2 keyboard plugged in, it wont power up, nothing.
I dont know if I should write the seller and tell him it work work or go find a Sparc Keyboard to test it with.

Any advice?
Thanks.

My experience, a few years past, has been that many Sun Sparc products will not boot without the proper (matching) Sparc keyboard.

Maybe someone here can guide you to configure otherwise.......?

This is an older ultra sparc workstation, 277mhz 128MB RAM. It has a PCI BUS and SCSI HD.

Hi Curt,
You will need a Sun keyboard unless you just happen to have some sort of serial console port available. You can try using Reflections or similar software with a Null modem cable hooked from your PC to the serial port on the Ultra. I haven't done this for a million years but it should work. If you have a dumb terminal, that will work. A digi will work. I know most people don't have stuff like this sitting around their house, but some do.
CUL8R,
Tony

By default the suns will assume that you are using some kind of terminal if no keyboard is connected to the box. All output/input will be sent trough com port 1 .

Do as tio tony suggested. Use a terminal or a terminal program such as reflection or minicom (on unix) and connect a null modem cable to the sparcs first com port.

The suns use special keyboards becuase the mouse is connected to the keyboard and so the keyboard and mouse share the same PS2 connector in the sparc. So a PC keyboard will not work!


/Peter

I have purchased from e-bay a new sun keyboard & mouse to test with. Thanks for the info!

I guess what threw me off was that there is an onboard PS/2 style port for a mouse & keyboard as well as a sun keyboard port. There was a yellow piece of tape over the PS/2 ports when I unboxed it. Oh well... live & learn...

Later