Don't get too excited about Sparc5s, they are old.  I got my first Sparc5 in 1993.  Here are some benchmarks for sparcs compared to intel:

Sparc5		70mhz	85mhz	110mhz
SPECint92	57	64	?
SPECfp92	47.3	54.6	?
SPECintRate92	1122	1295	?

Pentium 	66mhz	100mhz	133mhz	
SPECint92	64.5	100	155
SPECfp92	56.9	?	116

Sparc10/20	50mhz	quadprocessor
SPECint92	69.2	?
SPECfp92	78.3	?
SPECintRate92	1628	6034

As you can see, they fall somewhere between a Pentium 66 and Pentium 75.  Not screaming machines by any stretch.  The memory is proprietary as far as I know.  Sparc10s can have up to 4 CPUs and that is pretty cool, but those CPUs will cost you more than a new Athalon 1Ghz system.  Not really worth it.  The best thing about the sparc5 is getting to know sun hardware.  The bootprom is something I wish intel had.  Being able to do hardware level work on my system and booting a cdrom and installing via a serial cable is awsome.

Check out http://www.sunhelp.org/

Dusty

------------------------------------------------------
> I think that might be the place on Mapunapuna behind
> Wholesale Unlimited - Hawaii Computer Recyclers, I
> think it was called.
> 
> Out of curiosity, how does a Sparc 5 or a Sparc 10
> compare to an Intel machine for performance with Linux
> or Open BSD? Is it comparable to a Pentium, PII or
> Celeron? 
> 
> Also, do they take proprietary memory, or is it
> something standard that intel PC's would also use? I
> might want to try out a Sparc box running Linux just
> for educational purposes myself. 
> 
> Aloha,
> 
> Rob
> 
> 
> --- jay <jay@musubi.org> wrote:
> > if they are, could someone find out for me?
> > i'll be in back on island in two weeks and could
> > use a sparc5 or two...
> > 
> > =jay
> > 
> > On Tue, 3 Apr 2001, mmn wrote:
> > 
> > > Just a thought:
> > >  there was an add in the Online Connection paper
> > about a clearence sale
> > > where there were Sun Sparc 5s and 10s with
> > monitors on sale ($150-
> > > $200). I went down there a week ago. They were
> > unloading more sparcs
> > > when I got there. They didn't have any cleaned up
> > to boot up but I was
> > > told that they give some sort of warrentee on ones
> > they sell...with
> > > Linux as the OS. Wonder if they are still there..
> > >
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