I agree with all of this.

For me, I think the best “I want the SPARC experience with minimum fuss” boxes are the SS 5/20 (which are very similar machines, the SS20 is sort of a multiprocessor SS5) or the Ultra 1/2 desktop workstations. All of those are SBUS machines (there are PCI machines with the Ultra 2 CPU and chipset, too, I think, but they’re not just called “Ultra 2”?).

I also think of Solaris 7 as peak Solaris, I don’t think you’re alone there @PAPPP@lemmy.sdf.org . If you want something past Solaris 7, just go with OpenSolaris/OpenIndiana/etc. and do “new Solaris” whole hog.

I have a set of GPIO boards for my PDP-11s, I’ve been wanting to turn one of them into a G-code interpreter.

I have never owned a Baofeng (and probably never will; I do not like that they frequently have very poor spurious radiation characteristics, and people act like that’s not a problem!). My first mobile radios were Kenwood and Icom, my first HT was a Standard (before it was acquired by Vertex and then Yaesu), the mobile in my vehicle right now is Yaesu (FT-7800), and my packet station (when last set up) was an Icom. I’m not particularly tied to any one brand, as you can see. :-) (Most of my HF equipment is tube type, so it doesn’t enter into this equation!)

I rather like the FT-7800; I think it’s much easier to use and has a much better UX than the FT-70. That said, in 2023 I would expect more; it’s been in my vehicle for probably 15 years, now. I don’t know if the replacements (I don’t actually think the FT-7900 is that much newer?) address some of its meaningful shortcomings like lack of reasonable USB programming support (for real people, why do these radios not simply expose a well-documented HID or serial interface?), but as far as day-to-day usage, the 7800 is quite fine. The 70 … is less so. As I said, if you don’t actually have to change anything, it’s not bad, but if you have to change things it gets hairy fast.

I have/had nothing to do with retrocomputing on any large corporate sites, but I’m a mod on https://retrocomputingforum.com/ and look forward to seeing what happens here. I don’t necessarily need or want a mod role, but I’m happy to help out in any way I can.