Subject: Re: Tadpole Sparcbook 2
To: D. J. Rausch <rausch@beacon.com>
From: Jay Maynard <jmaynard@texas.net>
List: port-sparc
Date: 04/02/1999 08:10:25
On Fri, Apr 02, 1999 at 08:55:22AM -0500, D. J. Rausch wrote:
> As the owner of a Tadpole Sparcbook 2, I'd like to replace the existing
> SunOS 4.1.2 installation with a free OS.
> 
> >From the mailing list archives, it appears that no one has been able to
> install either NetBSD or Linux on this machine.  What are the major
> obstacles?  Is anyone still pursuing this, or has it become a lost
> cause?

I asked the folks at Tadpole about this, and they were not encouraging: it
seems the 2 uses proprietary hardware for which no documentation is
available. According to them, we're stuck with SunOS. (Yech bleagh.)

Anyone have any inside contacts at Tadpole who might be able to pry loose
internal hardware docs or driver source? They don't sell or support these
any more, and have gone to standard hardware int he SPARCbook 3 series, so
they gain nothing by keeping the stuff under wraps.