From: ram@shukra.Eng.Sun.COM (Renu Raman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware
Subject: Re: SPARCClassic (and other Sun announcments)
Date: 13 Nov 1992 06:55:47 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.
NNTP-Posting-Host: shukra

First: Nothing comes for free folks.

Second: The deal is that for orders > 12 - its 3995 and for 1-11 its $4225.

Third:

>  Gateway 2000 66MHz 486DX2 EISA*     Sun SPARCclassic
>
>  66MHz Intel 486 ("double clocked")  50MHz TI microSPARC
>  8MB RAM                             16MB RAM using 16MB sims (to 96MB)
>  340MB SCSI disk                     207MB SCSI-2 (to 22GB)
>  ??                                  8 bit audio
>  not included                        twisted pair ethernet (10mb/sec)
>  2 serial ports                      2 serial ports
>  1 parallel port                     1 parallel port
>  ?xEISA slots (32MB/sec)             2xSBus slots (100MB/sec)
>  16bit SVGA w/1MB                    8 bit color, 1024x768 or 1152x900
>  14" CrystalScan                     15" color 1024x768, 76Hz refresh, 100dpi
>  5.25" & 3.5" floppys                3.5" optional
>  DOS 5.0                             Solaris 2.1
>  MS-Windows 3.1                      Open Windows 3
>  Choice of application               not included 
>  Tower case                          IPC style box
>                                      64bit memory bus
>
>  $3,995                              $4,295

					smaller footprint
					Lesser electricity bill
> 
>* Taken from page 32 of Oct 92 Computer Shopper
>they are cheaper ... yes.  I wish Sun would drop the 207 disk
>and replace with at least the 424.  It really seems silly when a fully loaded
>OW3 can take 80MB of space.

But then if you get a 12 pack - you don't need OW on all of them. Agreed,
for a single quantity order, its small - but then there is a price
trade-off - we don't have the volumes anywhere near PCs to cut down the
price and there is a good base of share-holder who say some X% margins are
important. And then there is the other tradeoff point as well. Would
you have just a 400 Mb disk and do everything with it or do you really
need 800+ MB (I do) - which means 200MB for OS, swap and assorted things
+ an external disk is the right mix.

>The thing that I really feel is that to be
>competative, Sun is going to have to be _twice_ as good.  They need to have
>all as listed above, package it with a monitor that can handle the 1152x900,
>put in a bigger disk, maybe a bit more memory and drop the price a bit.   

Folks - buy lots of these - it will happen automatically as Volumes
pick up :-)

When you compare price performance - compare the IO and graphics performance.
If you want ethernet or SCSI - its much better in terms of performance.
You need to also compare similar OS - the first order competition is
really x86 boxes with Unix Vs these and then the DOS based machines.

>They indicated that the microSPARC actually costs hundreds of dollars less than
>a comprable 486 cpu and it has various other stuff in it (sbus logic? - memory
>hazy here).  Both systems are on a single board and have an edge connector
>to connect them to the backplane, making them ideal for imbeded or clone
>applications.

Yes - you will find or hear about other applications of these boards
and chip sets real soon - printers/copiers, network routers, cheapo file servers
or NFS accelerators etc etc.

>The SPARCcenter 2000 uses XDbus (Xbus from Xerox) and system board which 
>accept two processors, memory & sbus boards each.

 Xbus is differnet from the XDbus - X bus is the bus interface
 between the supercache and the system bus which is XDbus. This is
 probably (correct me if I am mistaken) the first commerical medium
 scale MP using a packet switched bus.

>Well, all in all I am impressed.  Not that any of these systems will blow 
>your socks off, but that we now have decent, binary compatiable systems from
>a $4,300 desktop with decent capabilities to a 8 processor system capable of
>20 processors later.  The larger system capable of moving 640MB/sec of data
>around on it's internal bus & pricing starting at $95K.  This, with a new
>system (the LX) that gives us the fun features of the SS10 at a potentally
>obtainable price.  All in all a warm fuzzy  :-)

And bear in mind that as faster CPU modules are available - the SPARCcenter
2000 machine can very simply use them - no board swap... (much like the
Mbus modules).
--
--------------------------------
   Renukanthan Raman				ARPA:ram@sun.com
   M/S 16-11, 2500 Garcia Avenue,               TEL :415-336-1813
   Sun Microsystems, Mt. View,  CA 94043
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.hardware,comp.sys.sun.admin