Success.

Both sparc 1 & 4 nvram chips saved and functional. They remember their identities after shutdown now.

I also installed fresh netbsd 10 on both as well (which was quite the journey in setting up bootp/tftp/nfs on a raspberry pi).

Watch for these systems soon on eBay. :)

[Also needed was a new drive in the 4, and half the ram removed because one of the 4 sdimms was bad, but pairs are required. The original 1+ hardware still works.]