22 Jun
1997
22 Jun
'97
2:31 p.m.
Sun hardware was damn sturdy. Their later servers -
such as the
current E3000 and E4000's I don't think are really as tough as something
like one of the old 3/280's.... Man those things are tough and still in
production in rare situations. We have a 3/60 in production just to gdb
code because our 680x0 cross development/emulation platform doesn't handle
debuggers terribly well.
I have a 3/280 (or 4/280) and I must admit that it _is_ built like a
battleship (well, as far as computers go). It is a big rackmount VME
system, originally used for server work. I rarely use mine, as it is a
real power sucker (32 megs made of 256K DRAMs has something to do with that).
Note that many late model Sun-3s can be converted to SPARCs with a simple
card swap (I have both cards - a real suprise when I opened the
machine the first time, expecting to find Motorola).
Of all of the early SPARCs (Sun-4), SPARCstation 370s and 470s seem to be
the most common. They also tend to be cheap, as Solaris no longer
supports the early architecture. They also make fine furniture (they are
quite large, and have a power supply you can nearly weld with).
Sun really knows how to make nice looking machines - their designer seems
to be rebelling against the "round" look - take a look at just about any
Ultra and you will see what I mean.
Does anyone
have a timeline for Sun machines and OS's?
No, but I think you might want to check the Sun Hardware Reference
FAQ available at: