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As a teenager, I scored a sweet job installing new SPARC 5 workstations at an electronics company for a few weeks during an otherwise quiet summer. Man, those were some amazing computers. The cases opened with a thumbscrew and were so easy to work with. Elegant design. Super robust. For a kid who had only ever worked with cheap PCs, Sun hardware was an absolute dream.

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I also liked having to replace some hardware on one (maybe a disk, was a while back), and wondering what tools I'd need.

I opened up the case (just a thumbscrew or latch) very easily, to find a Sun branded official screwdriver sat inside the case in a tool holder, ready for me to use.

Was a nice sign someone really cared about being able to work easily on those machines.

I had a Sparc 5 at home when I was in my early 20's, probably 1996 or 97. That was my main desktop for about 4 or 5 years. Great machines.

I bought a SPARC 1 that I later converted to a SPARC 5. Lovely pizza-box.

Had an IPX at that time too, stacked high with peripheral boxes. It acted as my auto-dial gateway to the internet. Of course that was connected to an HP 700 series workstation, a SGI Indigo^2, an IBM PS/2, and a Linux box. The good old days of finding surplus workstations at computer flea markets.

I also had a Sparc IPC for a while. Those were slowwwww.

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