Apple Network Server

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > YOSPOS > Apple Network Server

atomicthumbs: Dec 26, 2010; We're in the business of extending man's senses.

what the gently caress

quote:

The Apple Network Server (ANS) was a short-lived line of PowerPC-based server computers manufactured by Apple Computer from February 1996 to April 1997, when it was discontinued due to poor sales. It was codenamed "Shiner" and originally consisted of two models, the Network Server 500/132 ("Shiner LE", i.e., "low-end") and the Network Server 700/150 ("Shiner HE", i.e., "high-end"), which got a companion model, the Network Server 700/200 (also "Shiner HE") with a faster CPU in November 1996. They are not a part of the Apple Macintosh line of computers; they were designed to run IBM's AIX operating system and their ROM specifically prevented booting the classic Mac OS. This makes them the last non-Macintosh desktop computers made by Apple to date. The 500/132, 700/150, and 700/200 sold in the U.S. market for $11,000, $15,000 and $19,000, respectively.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Network_Server

# ¿ Sep 15, 2017 11:35

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 03:47

atomicthumbs: Dec 26, 2010; We're in the business of extending man's senses.

a guy on 68KMLA posted:

Yes, AIX 4.1.5 with my own security patches. I shouldn't be too hard on it, it's a pretty busy server, considering (the web server handles around 10,000 transactions a day -- not bad for a vintage server).

Part of the problem is probably the RAM. It uses the parity FPM option, and when it heats up, a bit probably flips somewhere and AIX MCHKs since it doesn't do ECC. The system stays up, but it forces a reboot and kicks me off. This happens a couple times a week and it's enough to finally annoy me sufficiently. However, NSDU can't handle more than 256MB of RAM and the RAM always passes the ROM-based Long RAM test because nothing's hot yet, so I've never been able to track it down (and try finding parity FPM RAM today!). Cache had also occurred to me, but I would have expected more than just an intermittent fault for that, and it kernel-panics with a stock PCI Power Mac cache stick so I'd have to wait around for another 700 1MB cache.

By comparison, the Power Mac 7300 that runs my Gopher server is rock-solid, but there's no parity RAM (let alone ECC), and it's got a G3 card and I've got plenty of spares for that (I bought lots of Sonnet's CPU cards when they were blowing them out so I would have parts). I think the issues I'm seeing are more specific to the ANS, because after all it was intended as Apple's "big iron."

At one time trag was looking at designing a CPU card for the ANS, but he never was able to get far enough with it, and I think there would be exactly two people who would buy it (he and I). I'm sure there are people still using ANSes in production environments, but very few, and I'm the only one I know of that still runs AIX.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2017 11:36

atomicthumbs: Dec 26, 2010; We're in the business of extending man's senses.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2017 11:42

atomicthumbs: Dec 26, 2010; We're in the business of extending man's senses.

Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

what's the power draw on that big sumbitch?

Loud

graph posted:

what the gently caress? ive never heard of this thing

me neither until i did some googling to figure out if you could fit a 68060 into any mac and stumbled across it

(answer to my question: maybe, with a lot of work)

# ¿ Sep 15, 2017 20:01

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > YOSPOS > Apple Network Server