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Want a Sparc Workstation for $995?
frankie writes "Several news agencies are reporting that Sun is breaking the $1000 mark with its Blade 100 workstation. It's got USB, FireWire, and PCI -- aimed at competing with the x86 desktop market. One thing it doesn't have, though, is any mention at all on Sun's own web site..."
Thats the _1000_, not the 100.
:)
Different machines. The 1000 has been out "forever". Seems _you_ needed to do some proofreading
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
If you go through the Sun Store and select the
light model and then add 128M in the options
section it only costs $225 more.
-Rusty
The Master (Angelo Rossitto) in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, "Not shit, energy!"
A train station is where activity related to using a train takes place.
*NOBODY* expects the dumbass police.
Yes, it's got sound; if you look at the specs, it's got four audio ports, line in, line out, microphone in, and speaker out.
Should work well, since the audio on the ultra 5 always did.
The Sun PCi card (not to be confused with PCI bus cards) is a hardware solution to run X86 oerating systems under Solaris. It's actually a Computer-on-a-PCI card. Hence the price and the choices for additional memory - you're buying two computers that live in one chassis.
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
Yeah, try $240 for a power supply for my SGI O2, $380 for a CD-ROM, and last time I bought RAM, damn near $2800 for 512 MB of RAM. And I was thinking at one time of adding a second hard drive, but for the cost of the hard drive I wanted and sled hardware alone, I got a couple of 72 GB drives for one of my Powermac 9600s which I simply networked and used for storage space.
.pdf integration in astounding in its text handling and transparencies) and if Apple releases updates of the Nextstep development environment, there will not be another development package that can touch it in terms of speed and power of software development.
And as for "maintenance" contracts, for what they cost, I can simply go out and buy a new PC or Mac that will do everything that the SGI will, and faster. There is no point in maintaining this thing with the costs associated with it. Even the software for proprietary UNIX machines is hideously expensive. You can count on an application that is available on proprietary UNIX as well as Windows or MacOS costing two to four times as much on that proprietary UNIX.
Unless SGI does something radical with their pricing structure, they will be out of the workstation business entirely as my O2 and Octane will eventually be relagated to servers or simply sit on a shelf without a replacement as my hopes are actually starting to go with OSX. It should be relatively simple to port lots of linux/Unix apps to, have enough of an installed base to make many of these specialized applications much cheaper than before, (not to mention cheaper hardware) its got (going to have) a consistent interface with a drop dead beautiful GUI. (the quartz engine with
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Jonkatz is evil. The devil I tell you!
__________
Where is Doug Miller?
Yeah, all of you guys go get the new machines and put Linux on them. Then when you realize that the Linux/SPARC port has problems keeping up with x86, more people might get involved in bringing the SPARC port up to speed.
Just last week, Debian news said that their auto-build machine couldn't keep up with auto-compiling packages for other ports. SPARC packages are always behind, then there are the X 4.0.x problems, the gcc problems, etc..
I'm not trying to complain because Linux on SPARC still beats Solaris on SPARC, IMHO.
__________________ Hey Moderators!! Fuck Off! Thanks.
You don't have to spend that much. Take your old PC and get rid of the monitor, hook a NIC to it and use remote control software like VNC and you have a PC running your Windows applications on a window of your desktop.
IMHO, SunPCi is not for majority of computer users. I used both PC and workstation, and I never want to play Windows games on my workstation running GAUSS jobs. People don't want something that handle everything. Most people want a tool that handle specific jobs and handle that well.
A sig is redundant.
Our numerically intensive folks suggest third party memory, anyway. It's *still* outrageously expensive for the stuff theseuse--The best I can find is about $1000 for 512mb, and almost $500 for 256mb.
:(
And I need a whole gig: the memory will cost twice as much as the workstation . . .
Then a huge monitor, a scsi controller, and a 15k drive,, and I only have a couple of hundred left for the tape drive
hawek
I wouldn't say this is an especially good deal. You can pick up much better x86 boxes for the same price. However, one thing that is missing from x86 boxes is 64-bit processors. These are fairly competitive with Alpha systems...
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High memory loads, as in electrical loads. In other words lots of DIMM slots. Any machine with less than 4 DIMM slots probably doesn't need registered DIMMs.
I can see one reason for Sun doing this, and that's the fact that gray market hardware is killing their new hardware sales.
But now, why buy a $400 Ultra 1 (with only 143mhz CPU, etc) when you can spend about twice that and get the latest and greatest entry level workstation? (ignoring the value of SCSI and SBUS)
Don't sweat the petty things. But do pet the sweaty things.
EEC ram is designed for the European Economic Commmunity. It complies with the stronger safety, quality, and legal requirements required in the new European Union. It will generally cost 3X as much as US ram, largely because of extra taxes.
If it breaks down, however, the universal tech support available in most liberal European countries will repair it free of charge.
(Score:-1, Underranted)
I looked at sun's release, and they brag about 3 pci slots--I assume that it would indicate if they were 64 bit slits.
Still, this has potential: we have money allocated for an ultra 10 at the moment; presumably we can get more machine this way.
Still need to find what IBM will do on an RS/6000, and assembling a dual athlon looks tempting, too . . .
Now if only the price of 1G of memory would come down to a few hundred instead of 1k
hawk, who remembers not knowing what he'd do with a whole 16k when he paid $40 for it . . .
That's not even a valid FQDN.
I don't have much experience with Sun boxen (just a brief stint developing on a SPARCstation SLC), but I know that when they replaced my wife's 477MHz Alpha box with a dual-processor 800MHz Pentium ///, her FEA software ran slower. Like run times of six hours suddenly stretched to almost seven. FEA software is difficult to parallelize well (it's mostly matrix multiplication), so I doubt they were seeing much help from the second processor, but clearly for math-intensive apps, an 800MHz Pentium is no match for a 477MHz Alpha.
And don't forget that Sun was one of the first vendors to have full 64-bit PCI slots, which gives appreciably more bandwidth. I could easily believe that system throughput could be on a par or even exceed that of a system equipped with a "faster" (higher MHz) CPU. It doesn't take pixie dust...
Just junk food for thought...
Plus side? It's got USB and Firewire ports... But you can outfit the higher-end Ultra 30/60/80 workstations with a $39 USB card from CompUSA...
I called Sun about those a couple of weeks ago... They said availability around March 5th. So, I would say that in the next couple of weeks they are coming out.
BTW those are "server" class machines. The blades are "client" class machines.
j
It's just 50NS ECC EDO for a ultra 5/ultra 10, (might be buffered can't recall but it was on the ultra 2's) This Sun Blade 100 uses Cheap PC133 RAM though (maybe ECC, they don't say, but as it's Sun it's certainly possible) Here's a snip from the FAQ on Sun's site. 1. Can the memory used in the Ultra 5 or Ultra 10 be used on the Sun Blade 100? Can I use the memory from other Sun systems? No. The memory "type" used for the Ultra 5 and Ultra 10 is EDO, or Extended Data Out. The memory type for the Sun Blade 100 is PC133. Sun's older systems also use a different memory type, typically FPM, or Fast Page Mode. This memory type also will not work with the Sun Blade 100. 2. Is this memory proprietary? No. The memory used in the Sun Blade 100 is industry standard. 3. Why buy Sun memory? This family of memory products are priced competitively and are tested, approved and qualified by Sun. (Competetively priced my ass!) As for that I think that's it's bunch of crap, chances are you have access to some pc133, slap it in and see if it causes problems. I'm willing to bet it won't unless it requires ECC SDRAM. If you're worried, buy some good RAM like Mushkin. (or whatever floats your boat) Monitorwise, any decent new monitor will work fine as new sun boxes use a Standard DB15 vga connector (well not with a creator 3D card, but the ultra 10 where I used to work had one, and the Sun branded monitor that came with it had a DB15 connector and a 13W3 adapter to connect it to the Creator 3D card.) I've used Viewsonic P810's and P815's just fine with Ultra 5's and 10's though.
__________________
There's really no shortcut in measuring performance.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Either way, I'll stick to faster systems...
He probably gets laid though.
Why do I keep typing pythong?
What about this? OK, it's the Sun store, but it's there.
Don't be surprised if they're really targeting one or more niche markets they don't talk about publicly. Consider that HP uses its lowest-end HP-UX machines, rather than PCs, as front-end controllers for its largest servers. It's good to have a dirt-cheap (to build, if not to sell) box for purposes like this. Sun might be doing the same thing.
up on Sun's site now. You can see it here -> http://store.sun.com/catalog/doc/BrowsePage.jhtml? cid=60357
From Yahoo:
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - Sun Microsystems Inc. will unveil Tuesday its first Unix (news - web sites) workstation priced less than $1,000 as it tries to regain ground lost to competitors.
does anyone think they will make any money with this? They can't be making much... and why are they trying to regain ground in a market they have never been in before and with many competitors?
I think this is good news for the consumers, but a bad idea for sun.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
Here is the link:
http://www.sun.com/desktop/sunblade100/
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
"t's computing without compromise. The new Sun Blade[tm] 100 workstation shatters the $1,000 entry price barrier for desktop workstations without sacrificing performance, versatility, or expandability."
__________________
Sounds to me like you have electrical issues, not faulty hardware.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Also, can I use standard Adaptec PCI SCSI cards? Does anyone have a link to info on how to set those up? Or at the very least, can the Blades handle large (ie, 60gig) IDE drives? Tho I think putting 10K RPM Ultrastars in would be the most fun...
Any way to dual boot Solaris and SPARC Linux?
Are there any sites dedicated to upgrading Sun workstations?
ATI makes a very few number of mac cards for PCI. 3Dfx voodoo 4 and 5 pci for mac are available at a deal of a price really, and voodoo3 cards (pci) can be flashed to OF with a tool you could download under experimental. The #9 Imagine 128 was supposed to be able to be flashed to OF, but even though I got the software and the card, the resulting firmware just didn't work, however it went back to BIOS firmware just fine, so no harm done. Formac makes some "pro" cards that sort of are based around some #9 tech. They're not in a normal price-range though.
You probably don't want a 64 bit PCI card though.
-Daniel
Which is also true for every flavor of Linux I've seen!
The reason I prefer Linux to Solaris on a desktop machine is simple.
apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade
Well, apt is already available under Solaris. Since Solaris itself is now open-source, there's nothing to stop anybody from providing apt packages for it, assuming that hasn't already been done.
__________________
Why was the above moderated as "troll." I've been to the UK and let me tell you, a nicer bunch of mead drinking, boar hunting, rock throwing savages you will not find.
If you look down into the pages, they're using the ATI RageXL as the graphics chip of "Expert 3DLite" graphics.. what this basically means is that they are using a 4 yr. old graphics chip and giving it a fancy new name. The way the graphics of the system are touted, you'd think they could do a little better. Also if you'll notice, it uses IDE drives.. also cheap. We use the ATI RageXL in a reference platform at the office, If you combine a $10 graphics chip with a $60 drive (typical wholesale from mfg. prices).. if any of the other components fall into the same category as these, then they're making a killing.
--- lokai
Better off with Linux than Solaris x86 - way better device support.
Thats a sunblade 1000, nice machine but its not $995 its $9,995! The sunblade 100 is just above it now in the price list. The sunblade 100 has a 500mhz UltraIIe which basically means the box is a piece of crap. I would buy a sb1000 today if the price were $995 for a box with a 900MHz UIII but as it is, I think a nice Duron will kick the living #$%# out of this sunblade 100. Part of the problem is it comes with assorted trash, like that smartcard reader! Damn it, dump the smartcard reader and give me a graphics adapter thats better than the one in my 486!
No, if he were gay, it would have been funnier
My boss said he wanted to see more of me. So I gained 12 pounds. This post may or may not be sarcastic.
What a snazzy combination! I've NEVER seen all those great features in a sub-$1000 computer before!
Hardware prices are seldomly relevant, at least not in the range you're talking about. Peanuts, as they say here in Germany...
Setup costs (person hours of consultants, and also of internal staff) makes up a much larger amount. As an example, the last Sun HA cluster I did set up costed roughly $750K. Implementation costs were above $1M. Implementation costs for a Linux cluster would have been even larger. (Just ignoring for the moment that Linux clusters are not yet ready for mission-critical systems.)
Maintenance (better: support) contracts is always a sad topic. It severly depends on the vendor staff you work with. Actually, since this story is on Sun - I had very good experience with our Gold-Plus and Platin support contracts - but their price tag is a bit higher than the one quoted by you... :-)
Sorry to say this, but you don't seem to have experience in financing system installations in an industrial setting.
Joachim
People don't write Manifestos any more -- what's going on in this world? [Frank Zappa]
Point taken: however the linked article seems to see the SunPCi card as a major selling point for this. Although PCI bus is also great, it is fairly common on PCs, and hence not really something to get excited about. My confusion stemmed from Slashdot getting excited over PCI (bus I assume), and the article's SunPCi -- which, with a built-in Athlon-based processor and all the amenities seems to be more exciting than simple PCI-bus.
actually, you could probably run the standard 110 dollars for 256 megs ram you would find on the common market but chances are that the machine would randomly just reboot itself ussually when you REALLY didn't want it to so the 500 is not that bad if the machine is important
Jon
Keep in mind that this is a NEW CPU ARCHITECTURE, the Ultrasparc III. It may not be a total slam dunk to get the kernel ported to it despite it being binary compatable and all that.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
We use a few Ultra5s here as servers. They suck. Nice UltraSparc II processor, but only running at 360mhz, these things are big and slow, and worst of all, really expensive! They get the job done, but there are other better and cheaper (and smaller) alternatives from companies like VA Linux.
The U5 makes a nice workstation, but thats about it. Glad to see these things coming out, cheaply, and with UltraSparcIII processors!
I have an Ultra 5 workstation at the ISP that I work for. Its a pretty slick little unit which has the addin PCI card.
For starters, the PCI card is an AMD K6-2-400 w/64mb of ram. Sun is now using Celeron processors on their PCI cards. The main system hard drive has a partition on it that acts as the storage for the PCI card (think VMWare here.. )
When you boot into Solaris, your WM is loaded as per normal. You can use the machine without even launching the PCI card. There is a program that spawns the PCI and whatever Windows operating system is installed on the partition. Windows is then run in whatever size window you want and it is 90% independent from the rest of the machine. When Windows crashes, it only crashes the PCI program, and the rest of your programs chug on as normal.
The one major setback is that you MUST run windows on the PCI addon board. You can not run another version of Unix, BEos etc. The reason behind this is because special drivers for the keyboard, mouse, hard drive and display are needed to drive the PCI card. You use the same KB, Mouse and display for both "computers".
To answer your question (finally) its pretty much like VMWare except that instead of emulating a PC, there is actually another one installed on a PCI card inside the desktop.
I've seen and used Mandrake 7.1 on big Sun workstations in last June in Paris Linux-Expo and that was great... Does anybody know if I could install it on the Sun Blade 100 workstation. I always dreamed to have a Sun running Mandrake :-)
>We had a single NIS+/NFS server with no redundancy
At the prices of this extra support, plus the extra costs involved in buying the machine, couldn't you have, instead, paid for 4 redundant intel/linux systems + labour?
Just wondering...
With that much redundancy I'd say you'd have more than enough time to fix those problems.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
(Barracuda? I don't seem them using IBMs!)
Actually, Sun uses IBM drives in a lot of their systems. There doesn't appear to be much conflict between them on a parts level.
But I agree, I wish they added a SCSI option to this box; at least you can drop two drives in it now, and I'm sure you could change them to scsi, with some creative rerouting of cable and such.
I mean looking at the machine its nice and looks pretty but the simple matter is that Sun is still charging for Forte C++ personal edition which means if I don't buy forte c++ I can't compile a native solaris kernel for the box. Which in my opinion defeats the whole purpose. Not only that but the only thing I would really want outta the box is the processor (ultrasparc iie 500mhz yummm). Nothing else is really revolutionary about the box.
So how exactly does sun plan to hit the desktop? Sure looks like a fun machine to play with but I'm not sure if I'll give up my 800mhz machine running Linux for something that will do the samething except for the fact that its on a 64bit arch. Maybe it'll be good for research purposes but then again researchers already have the higher quality sun machines. So who exactly is sun targetting these machines to?
IMHO I believe its a little too late for Sun to try and jump in the desktop market. They should of started to provide low end machines like these maybe 1-2 years ago, with kernel source; and even if I had to pay for Forte C++ I would of probably bought one.
I have no need for it now. However it's the thought that counts. Thanks Sun, we will see how you fair in the battle arena now.
why the hell does adding a dvd-rom jack the price up by $325.00!
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What would be cool is if you could run linux on the SunPCi. A whole pile of cheap ($195) sandboxes.
Nicholas
So all you'd be doing is replacing the Solaris kernel with the Linux kernel. You're obviously not a kernel hacker or you'd know about Sparc Linux. So why do you need an open-source kernel? Religious considerations aside.
__________________
While the U5 was more expensive, I had one and let me attest that it sucked. The base config comes with IDE everything, 4GB hard drive, a slow processor (can't remember the exact numbers) and 128MB of RAM. All this for only twice what you could get an equivalent PC for. The video was limited to 256 colors at any reasonable resolution, etc. My Linux box (a dell pII-300) blew it out of the water on every benchmark and was cheaper.
Yeah, this thing is cheaper than the u5. But Sun workstations have not really been performance competitive with the PC world for five years now. Somehow, I suspect that this box isn't going to be any better.
--
-- Slashdot sucks.
Try the other way around. Rumor has it that HotMail runs on Sun Servers. M$ tried to port it to NT, but it crashed.
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www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
Hmmm, so the magical debate over CISC vs. RISC rolls on. As I much agree that this machine would be a nice machine to have, I don't think that the $1k price tag is really worth it. Reason being that high end Athalon and Pentium systems can be obtained at a much more attractive price/performance ratio.
Hmmm, now how about raw performance? Granted the Sparc II is a nice CPU, but can it actually compete with an Athalon at 2x the MHz. If so, can it compete in such a wide margin that would justify the price. Check the Spec bench's...
2000 Integer Results
2000 Floating Point Results
Granted, these shouldn't be taken as the ultimate in performance, but I don't see a staggering lead.
As for those in the RISC vs. CISC camps. I hate to inform you that the RISC, CISC is all but dead. Current RISC designs now longer embody the RISC philosophies of days past. CISC cores blend in to the point that one couldn't distinguish it from its called RISC counterparts. Modern CPU's are cutting the edge of new design concepts. If you feel the need to follow up on this. I suggest reading the following...
RISC vs. CISC: the Post-RISC Era
and to track the history of your favorite CPU...
Here is a good place to start..
Hmmm, if you have a few bucks to spare, pick one up. But I don't see it as a vastly superior platform.
amusing: takes PC133 sdram, but runs the bus at only 83 or 100 MHz.
They use IDE drives...a great way to kill performance is using an IDE drive on a SUN arch. machine. Since your hard drive is used so heavily on a Unix machine, an IDE bus, which the wire is only 16 bit, makes for a huge bottleneck. That is what made the Ultra Workstations suck. So the first thing to do is add a SCSI interface, and dump the IDE drive. Although the 7200 RPM drives (Barracuda? I don't seem them using IBMs!) will help, I am sure you will be able to notice the difference.
Put it another way...my old SPARCStation 10 with a pair of 50 MHz processors feels about the same, speed wise, as my Celeron 366 system. Both running Slackware, it is only when I do some math-intensive computing that I really notice the difference.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
You only need the openfirmware on the card if you want to access the device as an openfirmware device. The kernel doesn't care if you access it as a PCI device, and you can use the ATY_128 framebuffer device. I don't think any 3D cards access the 3D hardware through the firmware.
Why not use it as a cheap, high performance, server at home or a small business? Heck, that would make a wicked web server that could serve up some seriously fast dynamic pages. Or, it could make a good email server. If you wanted redundancy, then slap on a few more hard drives. this is a really, really fast machine. It's a waste to use it as a desktop. Use your old Pentium 233's as desktops. Use this monster as a cheap server!
Correct me if I'm wrong though -- I'm genuinely curious, because I'm considering picking one of these babies up just to brush up on Solaris on its native platform... We have several Sun boxes, and during bootup they report having PC100 RAM (50ns).... So, all you're really paying for with vendor-supplied RAM is the assurance it will work from the vendor, right? THere's no proprietary modification to the system that specifically prevents it from running with standard DIMMs, right?
--
NeoMail - Webmail that doesn't suck... as much.
>You must not have looked too hard:
>http://www.sun.com/desktop/sunblade100/
That's like geek porn.
Hey everyboody! Check out the processing power on this hot little package!!!
Right now there is some poor college student out there thinking "I could probably sell my roommate and have one of those sunblades instead!"
drool....
It is quite simple
Haiku should not be funny
Try a Senryu
Given the difficulties Sun has with providing working RAM, that's probably not such a bad idea. ;-)
They should have made it come in 5 fruity flavors and called it the iSun. It could have been the "UNIX Workstation for the rest of us".
Brian
http://www.assortedinternet.com
They make great X terminals. I wouldn't try running any major applications on it, though. I have my IPC display netscape and a bunch of Xterms (or zephyr, if that's your thing). Even though it's mono, it works great.
/ \
\ / ASCII ribbon campaign for peace
x
/ \
Cryptnotic
My other first post is car post.
No, it doesn't seem odd. We wanted to add 512 megs of ram to our Ultra-60 and our quote was over $3500. 1 GB of ram is about $7000. *sigh*. Someone as Sun is smoking crack. Another UltraSparc-II 450 MHz processor is $5000. I mean for christ sakes. I can buy a new system with a 450 MHz Ultrasparc-II and 1 GB of ram for around $14k.
The marketing pablum claims that the Blade 100 "shatters the $1000 barrier".
Excuse me, please, but $995 isn't "shattering" the barrier. It's "slipping into the elevator before the doors close".
Sun's network appliance "shatters" the $1000 barrier with a price of $500.
Okay, I'm picking nits over what appears to me to be a pretty nice machine. The price is approachable to a student and to a startup programming shop. But, in reality, does anybody buy low-end Sun's for their famous ability to build desktop workstations? Sun's strength is in glass-room behemoths running 500 Gig Oracle installations. What, do they expect to suddenly overtake Microsoft/Intel in the home market?
I chalk this up to "appease the hackers with a cheap Sun so they'll continue to write portable code".
(But then, Sun's store is now Slashdotted -- I'm thus supremely uninterested in Sun hardware/software solutions, if even *they* can get brought to their knees by a bunch of nerds configuring Blade 100s. What, are they running the site on one of their new Netra's or something???)
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
First of all, they are moving towards UltraSparc 3. This computer uses US 2 that will be built at the equipment that is already amortized and becomes available at no extra cost. The processor is built for the embedded systems, so it must be relatively cheap.
;-)
Second, they use all the standard components like off the shelf PC-133 memory, drives and their workhorse graphic card. All the extension slots and connectivity are also standard ones like PCi, USB and FireWire. It reduces their engineering and build expenses significantly.
Third, they are limiting the distribution losses by either building them to order for selling through the website or selling in a large quantities through the distributers; no depreciating PCs in Circuit City (which incur losses for IBM, HP & Compaq) here.
Fourth, they don't pay M$ tax, allowing part of profit to go and amortize the cost of Solaris development.
All of the above results in getting some profit to continue leading the UNIX pack
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
Beowulf Cluster? ;-p
S.t.e.v.e.
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There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Does anyone have perspective on trying to get Linux up and running on Blade workstation? I tried to use Debian's Potato on a duelie Ultra2 and still haven't gotten all of the services configured correctly(for instance XFree still doesn't work).
Does anyone have any recommendations on which distro to be using for prospective buyers?
Cryptnotic
My other first post is car post.
Huh? USB? What's that? It's a Sun Ultra. You plug it into the network and you run compilers on it and shit. Maybe browse the web with Netscape or setup pine and a mail server on it. It's not like it's going to replace your PIII-1GHz box with 512 MB of ram and a $500 GeForce card. :-)
Of course, it'll probably come out in the news at some point that they use NT and IIS for their website. It's happened to other companies I've believed in.
I wouldn't mind having a 64 bit machine for 30-40% off. I just hope you don't have to be an IT student (I'm going to school for Construction Electricity).
Yes, it would come with Solaris 8.
It is a cool little 64-bit box, and replacing Solaris with Linux is probably the first thing I would do with it. This would make 64-bit development much easier for Linux programmers with a 64-bit box this cheap. It isn't a server machine, but with SCSI hard drives it could be. So we need Linux support for the UltraSparc-IIe processor (if it isn't there arleady.)
www.rdex.net
Assuming that it is loaded with Solaris 8 w/ Nutscrape and StarOffice for applications, they would be wise to get business people to try it out and if they buy it, hopefully get them to buy into Sun's Support services as well. That's where they stand to make some considerable cash for themselves.
The next step they need to do however, is to mass market this to get it in people's minds. Just offering it on the website and getting geeks like us talking about it is not enough to make it a success.
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
Netra X1 is indeed $1k USD. however, it doesn't offer niceties like video or expansion. it was built as a rack-mount server, not a workstation.
Wow, this is quite inaccurate. First off, it ships standard with 64Mb RAM, so I found I have to purchase and install the extra 128Mb chip. You don't have to buy these from Sun as they're standard PC notebook memory, but it adds to the cost.
Second, to run Windows software you need Windows. Not OEM priced, not an upgrade, the full, freakin' expensive version of whichever flavor you choose. This can be ok for businesses with a site license, but the total unit price otherwise climbs pretty quickly.
In the end, the savings are not much at all over simply buying a 600MHz Celeron machine to sit next to your Sparc.
-- ShadyG
Nerd Rock In Progress
Sure the hardware starts aT $995 and even looks like a nice bundle to someone like me who needs a SPARC for certain things, however the Forte C++ compiler starts at $1850 for an electronic download - thanks very much Sun! NOT!
I would be interested in a few of these, were they available at an "overstock" discount!
Jeremiah
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Which sun monitor?
Most (older, and I suppose some newer) Sun monitors were Fixed Frequency with Composite Sync. Look up the capitalised words on google for more info than I've given you. If you have a MultiSync monitor none of this applies to you. Oh, and BTW: For some extreme prices, I've heard there are 13w3 to DB-15 adapters can can do most of the hardware modifications below inside the adapter. Your choice (mine's more risky cause I'm not certain what the logic is supposed to be, just do some research for that).
Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to lop off the 13w3, and solder on a DB-15. Then use an X-NOR gate (which is basically an X-OR gate with the output tied to the input A of another X-OR gate with input B tied high -- BTW: I _think_ it is supposed to be X-NOR) to combine Vertical and Horizontal sync.
Your next step is the most fun part: Figure out the exact resolution and sync frequencies for your monitor (check the 'net). Now set up your X server to only run at that frequency (ha... try doing this with windows monitor configuration... yeah right!) Hook it all together, and if its right, you'll get a stable image. If not, well, the worst you'll get is smoke. Probably not though.
BTW: If you choose to do this and hurt yourself / explode your monitor / void your warranty / end up with a non-functioning monitor I will take no responsibility. You've been warned...
For more detailed info read this: SOG Repair Faq.
I will say that while I haven't been successful with Sun Workstation monitors [yet], I've got a 21" Trinitron Tektronix Sync-On-Green monitor running like a charm right now. And it cost me all of $100 (a friend of mine did all the modifications for me... long story)!
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Ya, but you can also allocate system RAM (from the main system) to the SunPCi...
My girlfriend wouldn't let me buy the 1/2 ton VAX for $105 though :(
Rader
For Sun, it takes a while for products to move from press release to online store. The $1000 dollar Sun server mentioned in this slashdot article is only just for sale on their online store.
But, the SunBlade 100 is for sale on the online store now.
> Huh? USB? What's that? It's a Sun Ultra.
Then go to their web site and check out the specs of the machine. They're specifically touting USB and 1394.
I don't think you feeding a troll, you are just talking out your arse...
Go read the specs on the Blade and compare it to a pc you can buy for the same money. Then some of that drivel might stop...
--- Can i borrow your Clue-Stick(tm)? I need to go beat a few people with it...
Wow! I used to have wet dream about owning a sparc when I was younger...
...now, I just don't care.
Good to see that Sun is making such a good machine available at a reasonable price. I'd change from x86 to sparc instantly for that price... BTW, I wonder if they're going to sell that in Brazil? Would it already come with Solaris?
--
I have no sig at all.
The Sun site dosn't mention the SUNPci card as being part of the blade 100 workstatioin. You will have to pay extra $$ to get it.
The SunPCI is a nice idead, but 64MB of RAM simply isn't enough for most M$ apps.
--- Martin Skøtt aka. Qoumran
This isn't meant to be a troll, but I would like an honest answer as to why I'd want to buy this. I mean, Solaris is a more stable OS than linux, but what's it really got over it? I'd love to have this really bitchin' workstation that puts my PII 400 to shame, but would this be that much better than just a faster PC? Could someone who uses Solaris (I never have) let me know how it's better than Linux, and what the motivation really is for getting one of these? If you're successful, I may be looking at a new toy and a fat credit card bill :-)
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
for the $995 model it does not have any 3D but of course the big boy is only ~2500 and has good 3D and should rock. If you can put GNU/Linux on one of these I might just get me a Sparc for home. And before everybody asks me why the simple answer is I use and know Solaris but I like GNU/Linux better.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
I think the point was that there may be a problem accessing the console at the OK prompt. As long as the firmware contains the Open Firmware entries to identify itself you should be able to assign the console to any card. An example... /pci@1f,0/SUNW,m64B@13
/pci@1f,0/pci@5/SUNW,Expert3D@1
/pci@1f,0/pci@5/SUNW,Expert3D@1
/pci@1f,0/pci@5/SUNW,Expert3D@1
If the card has Open firmware descriptors, you'll see:
ok show-displays
a)
b)
q) NO SELECTION
Enter Selection, q to quit:
You can then set the output devices by:
ok setenv output-device
output-device =
This will put the banner and ok prompt on the display you choose. This probably will not work if no forth information is present on the card.
Last 2 cents: All PCI cards should contain forth descriptors as it is part of the PCI standard, but x86 vendors generally choose not to and only include x86 binary BIOS data.
_damnit_
_damnit_
It's my job to freeze you. -- Logan's Run
A tremendous performance boost for demanding compute-intensive applications.
Sun ushers in the next generation of exceptional tools for technical professionals with the Sun Blade[tm] 1000 workstation. The Sun Blade 1000 system accommodates up to two superscalar, 64-bit, high-performance UltraSPARC[tm]-III CPUs. It features a high-performance, crossbar-switch system interconnect that provides high bandwidth (up to 4 GB/sec.) for today's and tomorrow's ultra-high-speed processors and graphic subsystems. It also delivers plenty of internal disk and memory and a 64-bit PCI bus for incredibly fast I/O. The Sun Blade 1000 workstation provides both USB and IEEE1394 interfaces for connectivity to the leading edge in third-party peripherls. With state-of-the-art high-end graphics, dual monitor capabilities, and support for Sun's advanced storage systems, this workstation is truly a powerful, flexible next-generation desktop.
Processor Powered by up to two 600-, 750-, or 900-MHz UltraSPARC-III CPUs. Memory Delivers up to 8 GB of main memory and up to 72 GB of 10,000-rpm FC/AL disk storage. Graphics Choice of Sun[tm] Creator3D, Sun[tm] Elite3D m6 and Sun Expert3D graphics technology for high-performance graphics functionality. I/O Interfaces IEEE 1394 ports for high-speed digital video transfers; USB ports for connecting USB devices such as Iomega Zip® or JAZ® drives. Peripheral Drives Three removable media slots for choice of DVD-ROM, 4-mm tape, or floppy; smart-card reader is standard. PCI Cards Four industry-standard PCI slots provide access to hundreds of expansion and high-performance networking options. Operating System Runs Solaris[tm] 8 Operating Environment; binary compatible with previous Solaris versions and entire workstation and server lines.
This is all from there site.. who posted this?? What did they not use the little search box on the www.sun.com web site??
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Only 'flamers' flame!
It's amazing how Sun have managed to pass off a $700 price hike onto people who don't control the price of the machines. (I'm refering to the UK Netra X1 which launched at 1200STG in the UK as opposed to $999 in the US.)
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
I've never come across that.
How come you keep getting power cuts??
Where?
What model?
bill
(ex-Pyramid Unix Instructor and employee)
What is a workstation?
--
Je t'aime Stéphanie
IMHO, too little, too late.
--
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
Anyone else find it odd that it costs about $500 to add 128M of RAM? At least that was the only difference I could see between the small and medium configs.
Go to your local surplus store and get a Sony GDM20D11. It'll be a Sun-branded 21" monitor or an SGI-branded 21" monitor.
Anyone grok Ultra 5 RAM? I'd love to throw another 128M into this box, but I'm damned if I'm gonna pay "certified Sun" prices for my desktop. Is it really just PC100 with a brand name? If it's Sun, it works with Sun gear. If it's SGI, it needs a hack to accept separate sync.
Pinouts may vary depending on your cable. And you may have to use some "m64config" commands in your init scripts and X start up scripts to brute-force the card, but it's doable.
..that would give me a reason to spend $1000 on this machine instead of a similarly costed PC....
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
This is actually a verynice machine. I see many people who say they'd prefer an x86 machine with freebsd, or linux, or whatever. That's great. The problem is not the software exactly, I just don't think you all have used a true 64bit OS on 64bit hardware. For the kinds of projects this machine is positioned against (Engineering firms, aerospace industry, graphics industry, etc) this is an awesome deal. Even for us home users,.. a 500 mhz 64bit Ultrasparc processor isn't comparable to any intel hardware,.. it is far superior, when it comes to handling large applications, industrial purposes, you know. Really,. I am surprised that such sweet hardware gets such treatment here. And at a great price. Read the specs on Sun hardware vs Intel based hardware. Remember that this is true 64bit performance. Then post on how you'd like to see BSD or linux running on it. I've already inquired. Linux usb would be needed for the keyboard and mouse,. those patches are not complete yet, linux ohci drivers don't work on the sparcs yet. A matter of time until they do. Xfree drivers for the elite3d card would be very nice to see though, esp if they could be made to work with the DRI/DRM. The other onboard card is basically an 8mb ATI Rage XL, drivers for which are most certainly already in xfree. I can oonly speak for linux, as thats what I checked into. Anyone to speak for BSD? What about asking sun to help with drivers for their hardware?
What are you, dislexic?
This is -NOT- a SunBlade 1000. This is a SunBlade 100. One less zero. There's a LARGE difference in the 1000 and 100 (essentially, the 1000 kicks a whole lot of ass, the 100 kicks very little).
Sun makes some neat stuff, but its not really worth it unless you want to buy some of the higher-end workstations.
--
Dave Brooks (db@amorphous.org)
http://www.amorphous.org
A ripoff! I mean come on people! I got a Duron 700 with a TNT 2 graphics card, a 20 gig harddrive, etc. This is much more powerful than that Sun Station, especially with the awesome power of Win2k.
The truth about Michael
The only reason some open source software is difficult to install on Solaris is because the developers have only the vaguest idea of how to write portable software, or even portable Makefiles. I built Nessus recently on Solaris 2.6/sparc with SunPro C 4.2, and it was a two day chore to get it all done right, e.g.: what kind of security application wants to rely on LD_LIBRARY_PATH?? The Makefiles and configure scripts in the Nessus build process are obsessive about throwing away my LDFLAGS and CFLAGS assignments, which would have properly hard-wired the app to look for its libs in the apropriate places.
This kind of problem is epidemic at sites like Freshmeat, which should be renamed FreshPenguinMeat.
And who says Linux is the standard for where files should be placed? Linux is BSD-like, POSIX-like, SVR4-like, but not really. Solaris is SVR4 through and through, and has its files where SVR4 puts them. /usr/sbin/sendmail indeed! <sneer>
Edith Keeler Must Die
Solaris vs.OS X? Now there's a blood bath waiting to happen. Lets hope it doesn't.
Or maybe they are actually planning on collaborating with a competitor and joining forces so the content-servers and the content-creators can meet on M$'s desktop turf and drop da bomb.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
With a PCi card for an extra $195, the Sun Blade 100 machine would be able to run applications on both Microsoft's Windows and Sun's Solaris operating system.
If you buy the card, you're not using the machine just as a server, it's your desktop machine. Add a monitor and accessories, and you're nearing $1500.
Granted, I've always wanted a Sparc machine, but for the same price (or less) you can get a crankin' x86 machine with more RAM and have it running Linux and VMware'd Windows... or even better, Solaris for x86 and VMW.
I'm betting they don't, and Sun makes their profit on these low end boxes from the customers who actually have useful stuff to do with them, and therefore need the expensive memory upgrades.
But if these things take garden variety DRAM DIMMs, Katie Bar the Door, they'll sell like hotcakes and Sun will lose a ton of money. Better get 'em while they're hot. :)
Edith Keeler Must Die
This machine just gives more competition to microsoft windows more then any other. People must understand Microsofts fighting their way into the server market, with their dominance on the PC market. Linux is not a threat to Sun as much as much as Microsoft is. With Sun getting into the PC market, it begins to erode the monopoly Microsoft has on the PC market, giving more leverage to Linux machines in the meantime. remember that a future version of Solaris will be GNOME, so Sun is backing the open source community, even Linux. From a conference I just came from, "my enemy's enemy is my friend" (referring to microsoft being linux's enemy).
Big deal. I can get an SGI O2 on eBay for $750. :)
O2s are a lot cooler looking than this new workstation, and they have wide scsi, too.
-Chris
...More Powerful than Otto Preminger...
If you read the specs on Sun's website, it clearly states that the Sun Blade 100 workstation does in fact have internal PCI slot(s). The PCi card (the one that gives you a Wintel PC inside your Sun workstation) sits in one of the PCI slots, leaving the other open for half-length and full-length PCI cards.
The Sun Blade[tm] 100 workstation provides a 500-MHz UltraSPARC[tm]-IIe processor, 2 GB maximum memory, Solaris[tm] 8 Operating Environment, two graphics card options, and four monitor options. With an introductory price of $995, the Sun Blade 100 workstation is an affordable, workstation-class, 64-bit UNIX[R] platform.
Wow... Really destroys the $1000 barrier! Now we can buy sparcs and have a few beers after.
--
I have no sig at all.
My company has about 12 of these that are just sitting in a close - we might be willing to sell them cheap. They are originally for Ultra-10s, but they probably work with Blades.
What I want to know is, will Sun force us to use proprietary cabling and/or proprietary monitors with these "cheap" workstations, or will they get rid of the proprietary monitor connector and use something like an SVGA or DVI connector like the rest of the world?
I mean, a sub-$1000 workstation sounds great, but that's not so great if you need to buy a special monitor to use with it, or at the least, an expensive or hard-to-find adapter cable.
Please note, I'm not saying that SVGA is a great connector standard. I'm just saying that it's what everyone uses in commodity hardware, and I could see a lot of software shops buying el-cheapo 17-inch monitors to save a few dollars/yen/whatever so they can concentrate on what's important, getting a Sparc on someone's desk.
http://www.sun.com/desktop/sunblade100/
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
The SunPCi card uses a 600Mhz Celeron for the processor. Details at http://www.sun.com/desktop/products/sunpci/
Specs and other marketing blurb are available on SUN's website. --Ives
..I'd still rather spend the cash on a decent x86 system running FreeBSD...
The SunBlade 1000 (an UltraSPARC III running at 500MHz) seems in the same ballpark as a high-end Intel or AMD processor, so I wouldn't get my hopes up too high for the SunBlade 100 (an UltraSPARC IIe running at 500MHz); it's probably a reasonable deal compared to PCs, but not great.
The really interesting thing is that that the SunBlade 100 is a 64bit machine for less than $1000.
Once we get one, give a little time and we'll have it workin'.
"So, all you're really paying for with vendor-supplied RAM is the assurance it will work from the vendor, right?" Yes. Never buy RAM from Sun. Sun RAM is outrageously overpriced. For mission critical stuff, use RAM from Dataram, as it will not void a service contract, otherwise just find some cheap stuff that will work.
Here's what you have to do... Forward this message to five of your friends, and mail a Pyramid Mainframe to everyone on the list...
Sorry, couldn't help the Pyramid joke...
_________________________________________________
________________________________________________
suwain_2
Maybe, maybe not.
Macs, even high-end G4 systems, do not yet offer ECC RAM support, nor are fully 64-bit addressable.
I work at an EDU, and sun routinely gives me 20 - 60% discounts depending on the product. They're probably trying to capture market share, and put a dent in linux which has sun scared right now (I deal with sun on almost a daily basis... my sun rep said "we can't compete with linux")... the Blade system is a replacement for the Ultra 5 which cost as little as 1200$ with a edu discount (any student id gets you the discount).
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
Not even that would be needed. Two Dell Linux servers with a support contract would do.
Here's some info on Sun's site:
http://store.sun.com/catalog/doc/BrowsePage.jhtml? cid=60357
Yeah, I have a upgraded sparcstation 2(with the 2x cpu upgrade, a whopping 80MHz) and its big monitor. Adapters exist to feed the monitors from VGA(you can buy or build them), however the monitors are fixed frequency, so you can only use them when your machine outputs the exact sync, and your probably have to open the monitor up and play with the fine tuning. BTW, the optical mouse pads work wonderfully with the new breed of optical mice. This message must not be read without proper payment, therefore I have encrypted this message with a 16 illiteration ROT-13 encoding. Although it takes a while to decode, I have found it much more secure than 3DES. Micropayments for reading can be made to my paypal account. - Mikenet
I disagree: Sun's a lot more concerned about Windows on PC hardware. And I expect Linux will run on the 100 just as nicely as it does on my Ultra 1.
davecb@spamcop.net
See, there is good in the world.
Yeah, I have a upgraded sparcstation 2(with the 2x cpu upgrade, a whopping 80MHz) and its big monitor. Adapters exist to feed the monitors from VGA(you can buy or build them), however the monitors are fixed frequency, so you can only use them when your machine outputs the exact sync, and your probably have to open the monitor up and play with the fine tuning. BTW, the optical mouse pads work wonderfully with the new breed of optical mice.
");
This message must not be read without proper payment, therefore I have encrypted this message with a 16 illiteration ROT-13 encoding. Although it takes a while to decode, I have found it much more secure than 3DES. Micropayments for reading can be made to my paypal account. - Mikenet
From Yahoo!: The Sun Blade 100 workstation will sell for $995 without a monitor. It's more powerful and $1000 less than Sun's own comparable Ultra 5 workstation - its best-selling Unix machine.
The new machine is also five times cheaper than a comparable machine by Hewlett-Packard, which Sun said is its closest Windows-based competitor.
The new workstation also has twice the memory and is roughly half the price of Dell Computer Corp.'s 32-bit workstation, Kohout said.
Sounds like an increadible deal... I'll be snapping one up when available...
This could end up hurting M$ in the long run.
,NetBSD, and NT4(which is a joke in comparison to the others)
you have a market where on one side you have the sparc and on the other you have the Itanium.
an Itanium workstation would most likly cost around 2k. with a sparc station, which runs better than the Itanium, at half the price, buissness owners in need of a 64-bit system will likly go with Sun and not Dell.
on the Sun system the OS market is much more competitive than on the intel platform. there is Solaris, Linux
Microsoft will get hurt more now because more people are buying Sun systems and in that market they have a vary week hand hold.
so they could end up losing bigtime when it comes to buissness profits.
I mean if you are going to buy a sun workstation why would you buy winblows and ruin the system?
-The American people have overpaid; I am here to ask for a refund.
I just looked for pc133 on pricewatch. It looks like for any name brand memory, you're well past $350, and to $440 by the time you're to Kingston (the ones that make the sparc-type memory) [make that $440 once you add ecc].
But it's still half as much. And
So just how much difference would the slower memory make? memory bandwidth is my bottleneck, with near-random accesses accross a 1G array . . .
Oh, and talking to our tech folks, Sun memory probably won't be considered.
hawk
Nice try, Sun. Unless you develop on the Solaris platform there is no reason to get one of these. You can build a 1Ghz Athlon box for about $600. These copanies really aren't looking to make their platform more popular, they're just looking to make more monry form a design and hardware they already have lying around. Which is understandable. What is not understandable is why I don't see and Sparc based or PowerPC based ATX motherboards.
--
This is by far the crippling factor for this machine. Such a small cache makes handling many processes simultaneously (like you would on a server) inefficient. Of course, this machine is not designed as a server. It is designed as an inexpensive SPARC workstation for software developers, probably.
Maybe the UltraSPARC IIe core also has a smaller L1 cache than other processors in the UltraSPARC line. I don't know. I couldn't easily find any more information.
Cryptnotic
My other first post is car post.
Sun's bread nd butter is big machines. People have to program those big machines.
Yeah, the thing is that I'm a sysadmin at a shop that has some big machines (2 E10Ks, multiple 4500s, and a few small ones like 450s, 250, 420Rs and 220Rs).
I have to use NT to get to EVERY one of our machines, because most companies dont put UNIX workstations on the desktops because of cost (and I'd use linux but was told that I couldnt install it)...that and people are stuck on the evil-Bill 'Exchange' produet.
I suffer from apathy, but I just don't care.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.-Franklin
Pay attention. Kernel 2.4 has NFS v3 support.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
how was this offtopic?
Sun clearly states that the PCI card is a feature of the blade 100 (which was the topic of discussion)
I was asking a question about a feature of the topic of discussion and don't see how that concept is off-topic
> Because "the UK channel adds value to the sun
> product line".
Sure it does, for some values of 'value' equal to 'profit'....
"Elmo knows where you live!" - The Simpsons
The zilog chip that runs the serial ports is seriously throughput-challenged, the upper limit is around 33.6 reliably.
They do make nice little firewalls for a ether connection, though - but watch the heat!
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
"With a PCi card for an extra $195, the Sun Blade 100 machine would be able to run applications on both Microsoft's Windows and Sun's Solaris operating system."
Until I looked it up on Sun's site at: http://www.sun.com/desktop/products/sunpci/sunpcij tf.html
Using the stock mrouted that shipped with OpenBSD 2.7 would render multicast transit useless. I screwed with it for like 3 weeks running tcpdump, etc, trying to figure out if my routes were screwed, whatever. Then I look on their web site and they listed "to do: fix multicast bugs"
And on another project I had 26 IPv6 tunnels setup using a Sparc20 running OpenBSD 2.7 as a tunnel broker router and after compiling GNU/Zebra the damn thing would randomly crash after probing the routing tables before starting a BGP session. I CVS'd 4 different patch builds too and they all did the same thing.
Now seeing as Solaris 8 has Mobile IP for cross network roaming using a single IP address, native IPv6 (a commercial stack) and DVMRP multicast routing built in - I'd sure as hell pick Solaris 8 over a free OS for my next research project. You can even configure IPv6 network interfaces during the Solaris install. And you can get a free license for up to 8 processors from sun.com - and thats for both Intel and Sparc platforms. The media kit for like 4 CDs is only $80 or you can download the ISOs off their web site.
For me there is no question on what OS to run on a Sparc for doing real work, you don't buy a Ferrari, soup it up and put a one-eyed midget in it that can't see over the steering wheel.
Mad,
Pat
There is a Windows 2000 alpha but good luck finding software, and I wouldn't realy trust it.
One of Sun's headlines is "SUN SHATTERS INDUSTRY PRICE BARRIER WITH FIRST 64-BIT WORKSTATION AT $995". You'll note they are touting the "64-bit" buzzword as much as possible before the new Intel and AMD designs comes out.
But even discounting the new designs from the x86 houses, haven't there been inexpensive Alpha platforms? I know the Multia was supposed to fill a similar role. They are quite dated now, but I expect at the time of their sale, their price tags were around $1K. Alpha's are definitely 64-bit.
Can't you just smell the fear Sun coming off of Sun. Free Unices on commodity hardware is making their offerings look worse and worse. This new product line strikes me as a last-ditch attempt to lay ownership to the low-end workstation market before Linux does...and before commodity processors can claim "64 bit" as well. Many would say it is already too late. Linux has built up prestige now, it just needs a company with a solid rep (say...IBM) selling support to fully displace the older Unices. BSD could pull the same stunt.
If Sun wasn't so protective of Solaris and the high margins that proprietary systems allow, they might see Linux as an opportunity. By embracing Linux now while they still have a good name, they could become *the* Linux company in the coming years. If they stick to their current model, and don't pick up Linux (or do it too late), I can't see them remaining relevant. The Unix landscape has just changed too much.
Interesting times.
--Lenny
http://store.sun.com/webconfig/BuildConfig.jhtml
what is EEC PC133? A search on outpost gives 2 kinds of EEC ram:
PC133 EEC REG CL3
PC133 EEC CL3
So what's the difference between a registered DIMM and an unregistered DIMM?
--- only for the squeamish
We may be discussing the relative merits of Debian vs. RedHat at length, but in my opinion both are stellar compared to Sun's inconvenient administrative and packaging tools. Even if Sun were completely up to speed in those areas, there is still the issue that Solaris puts many files in different places from Linux (and BSD and SunOS, for that matter) and that getting and installing the latest GNU software on Solaris is still a lot more work than on Linux in my experience.
I believe the Debian UltraSPARC port is coming along but not quite complete yet. Anybody have more information? Can you get a basic Linux system with accelerated XFree86, GNU C/C++, Perl, and Python up on these things? What about Sun Java for Linux/SPARC? If the Linux kernel isn't up to speed for UltraSPARC, what about a RedHat Debian distribution built around the Solaris kernel?
The unix vendors are overpriced even for fairly mundane uses such as for engineering workstations, which happens to be what ours was for. They're absolutely thieves when it comes to "mission critical" stuff. Granted, the hardware usually does it's job and the support is great but considering what they charge, it damn well better be great.
Sometimes you just pay the money and it's worth it, but there is no way I could justify the markup for anything less than a mission critical system and even then, there has to be no alternatives. I can't see how anyone could cost justify something like an SGI Octane today except for rare cases where vendor lock in comes into play. (And in case you were wondering, I am typing this on an Octane. Love it but I couldn't justify getting a new one.)
Oh and BTW you don't know a damn thing about my experience and I mentioned hardly anything about them. One simple example and people think they know all your life experiences. Sheesh...
The new Linux 2.4.x doesn't boot even faster.
:^)
Regards, Tommy
yes they do Alpha and SPARC - and they also have announced something for PPC...
Yep. 64-bit memory bus, just like your average PC or Mac. That's one of the reasons this model only costs $995. It's the "eMachines" of Sun's lineup. If you need mega-phat memory bitpath, buy a SunBlade 1000 or get a used Ultra 30 or Ultra 60.
I drive an Aspire too. I agree, and a very well proven point.
-------------------------------------------------
Isn't this what the DEC Multia was supposed to be?
Don't get me wrong, I like multias, in fact I want to get one still, and I'll probably want to get one of these sun boxes too. However the multias were a flop. Question is, how many other pc-priced unix workstations have fallen flat? This can't only be the second...
You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
in the U5s the 256K of L2 cache wasn't on the CPU die, and didn't run at full processor speed.
It's you!!!
----Quid
----Quid
Less talk, more caffeine
Top to bottom Solaris is what I'm seeing. Linux on anything is preferrable to this. I don't need to spend an extra 300 bucks just to have a purple case.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
The only time the CPU could actually run your game code was in the vertical retrace interval which meant only about 20% of the CPU
Origional Nintendo's worked in the same way as the Atari 2600. All code had to be executed during VSYNC (when the drawing gun was moving back to the top of the screen). The only reason things ran faster was the interface that Nintendo had developed for sprites, backgrounding etc. allowed you to store a lot of imagemaps in the Nintendo's RAM and call them back quickly (though you could include VRAM on your cardridge if required).
Amazingly, the 16-bit Sega Genesis had far faster technology and was outsold by the 8-bit Nintendo, due to the popularity of the system and the large amount of titles available for it. Seems sort of like the x86 vs. Sparc situation we have here now. In my opinion, the Sparc platform is great, but people with always think that x86 is superior because there's games for it and high MHz ratings...
The clash of honour calls, to stand when others fall.
If it's so reliable why am I seeing about 5 times the failure rate for Sun's new-style peecee memory than I used to see with their 200-pin (published standard) not-quite-but-almost-commodity memory?
PCI is the standard, it's here to stay.
Pestilence, warfare, and strife are the standard, they're here to stay. Just because something is widespread doesn't mean it's desirable or that you can't do anything about it.
It's cheaper than some oddball propietary solution.
Let's see...SBUS is an IEEE standard. Your definition of oddball might differ from mine, but since anyone can go buy the standard for 40 bucks or whatever and make as many compliant SBUS devices as they like royalty-free, I'd hardly say it's proprietary. What you really mean is that it doesn't have the Microsoft Good-For-Every-Home Seal of Approval on it. Because that's really the only non-technical difference.
Has in my and many of my colleagues' views been sliding badly ever since the introduction of the Ultra 5 and the corresponding shift in Sun's philosophy away from quality and toward price.
I bet you don't like it because the "unwashed masses" can afford one so having it on your desk won't make you feel "special" anymore. Boohoo. Stop slamming Sun just because their new product doesn't make you feel "31337" enough and keep on smoking whatever it is you're high on.
Be realistic. I don't care what other people have, I care what I have; if you want to pay the cooling bills you can all have a damn e10k in your living room for all I care. But the time is passing when decent workstations are available at all. It's not a bad thing that you can buy a Sun Peecee for 1000 bucks. If you don't want to spend more or don't need anything better than a peecee, it's actually good. But it is a bad thing that you can't buy a decent workstation at any price - because they are no longer being made. It's about choice, and Sun's (and SGI's, and others') fanatical low-cost-workstation philosophy is taking away choice. Sun's Blade 1000, the top-of-the-line system, contains commodity parts and is surprisingly poorly made. In 1990 a similarly manufactured system with the same relative power would have been considered a midrange workstation at best. But now, even if you are willing to spend twice that much, you find that you can't buy a better system, because nobody is making them anymore. The simple fact is that the product lines of most major vendors are heavily stacked toward the low end, and true high-end workstations are essentially unavailable.
If I just wanted a high-end workstation to feel "31337" then my ranting would be silly. But I consider the design and manufacture of a true high-end custom workstation something of a work of art. The entire process - from the silicon to the buses to the boards to the overall architecture to the design of the cases, slots, and other physical aspects - is - or was - a labor of love, an expression of the engineers' fantasies. They could put all the bells and whistles in, use new standards instead of everyone else's, and take a lot of risks because they were designing something that was supposed to be fundamentally new and different, and better than anyone else's. The design criteria were performance, elegance, and innovation. Cost was never a factor because there will always be people who need so much computing power that they will pay almost any price to get the best available.
Now tell, how many machines are designed that way today? When you think about it, doesn't it seem at least a little sad that building a high-end workstation is becoming a lost art?
I'm amazed how hard Sun is pushing into the low-midrange workstation market.
Lets face it, youre always going to be able to get a cheaper machine from an x86 clone vendor, but these new machines from Sun (Netra X1/ Sun Blade 100) would give me a truly high quality and professional UNIX workshop that i could just about afford in my own home.
While i am a big fan of cheap x86 machines - i love putting my own systems together and being able to mix and match parts, I also appreciate the benefits of a complete, high-quality computing package.
The Expert 3DLite accelerator appararently uses a 3DLabs Wildcat 2 GPU, which should provide performance competitive with the GeForce 2 in most benchmarks, as well as whupping its ass in geometry-intensive applications.
The ability to put 2 of these cards in an entry level box is unprecedented. You can't do this with any x86 motherboard i have yet seen - its possible to have multiple AGP slots on the same motherboard, but is obviously too expensive for most mobo vendors to do.
I'd be interested to see what kind of difference the 64 bit PCI bus makes for 3D apps too.
I doubt it will beat the GeForce 3 in Quake3, but hardcore gamers will not even consider these systems.
With Solaris soon-to-be running GNOME, and MacOS X coming soon, i'm really looking forward to seeing some serious UNIX power applied to give Windows some stiff competition in the professional computing market, while bringing many benefits to the free software/open source community.
Linux and FreeBSD will continue to take market share from MS in the server room as the push to take the desktop continues, and as Linux's multimedia and games capability grows, M$ is going to be wondering where to turn next..
I wonder what IBM has up it's sleeve?
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
By the way, it does have a normal PCI slot, and you could put the SunPCI-II card in it, but also some other PCI card (provided there is a Solaris 8 driver for it).
It also spoells the death of Solaris x86, since the only reason to use it was because you couldn't afford Sparc hardware.
In fact, I'd go as far to say it will make a huge dent in Linux market share -- I know I would prefer a Solaris Sparc machine to intel box any day. Many others would, especially at the server end, where the Netra really shines.
Tux, you're going to have to do something really good to keep me on board!
I have a Sun Ultra5 (360 mhz) with 256 mb ram, and a sunpci card with 256 mb ram, and a k6 400. It is pretty much unusable. I hate it. For spending the same amount of money I can get a PC run linux and windows under Vmware, and I find it's much, much, faster. Granted this is another 140 mhz to play with, but I don't think its going to be that much faster.
just my opinion.
ideal; model tiny; codeseg; org 100h; start: cli; hlt; ret; ENDS; END start
For one thing, the PowerPC chips used in Macs are 32-bit chips; the SPARC in the Blade 100 is a 64-bit architecture. For another thing, the software bundled with the PowerMac, and the software generally available for it, is more consumer oriented. Yes, there is overlap; for instance, Photoshop exists for the Mac, and that's more of a professional graphics editing package. Photoshop also exists for SGI boxen, though I doubt most people would buy an SGI machine just to run Photoshop.
There are a lot of hidden costs to running a proprietary UNIX box. The Blade 100 makes great strides toward using commodity hardware, but there's so much more Sun could do on the software side. Then again, if Solaris were viewed as a mainstream OS, would Sun's server share decrease?
The zone boundary is where the trains come to top.
.oO0Oo.
EQ - when you lose interest in life
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
You wrote about Unix prices. You didn't mention workstations explicitely. Unix is usually deployed in the server market, not in the workstation market. Therefore, I commented on the situation of financing a common Unix deployment area - servers, in particular mission critical ones. Btw, I draw from experiences in automotive and flight industry, and financial institutions.
No, they aren't. When a customer looses tens or even hundreds of millions for every day (sometimes even for every hour) a system is down, the current price tag for hardware and support is quite in range. That is not stealing, that is "supplying a service that's needed in a free market." As I've said, person costs are much more expensive than actual vendor costs, a point you chose to ignore conveniently.
Sorry, I didn't want to offend you and I'm surely not interested in all your life experiences. I wanted to point out that your technical experience and judgement might be very well; but I don't find your points on the financial side of this topic convincing. You just repeat your viewpoint; without any arguments backing them up. But this is /., I didn't expect it. ;-)
Joachim
People don't write Manifestos any more -- what's going on in this world? [Frank Zappa]
When will it come to the UK ??
Life is a bitch... So let's not bitch about life, just be a bitch in life.
"Oh, so you're saying that you've never heard of a Macintosh before?" I *do* believe he was being sarcastic. The link to Apple's site really gives it away, as if it weren't obvious enough.
"Maybe for once in my life people will call me 'sir' without adding 'you're making a scene'." -Homer Simpson
If you run Solaris in the enterprise, you run Sparc boxes. For people in Solaris environments, it's an incredible deal. FWIW, the SunBlade supports a GB more ram than the Dell.......
Dave
I have worked with Sun products in engineering companies for 6 years, and I can assure you that they are in this market. They are definitely scared of the NT workstations that are starting to show up, running CAD and Analysis software faster than a similarly priced Sun workstation. While working at Hughes Space and Communications I could only watch the Sun guys go green at the mention of the new NT workstations rolling out... with nothing to compare pricewise available from Sun. However, for serious CAD work and the huge assemblies being created, the NT boxes would choke, die, crash. Anyone who says NT takes away the BSOD is not pushing around 10,000 part 3D assemblies. So, the Sun machines manage to hold out in the upper levels of engineering and design...but Sun has lost alot of spots on the lower-end users's desks to NT.
Sun told me that they don't even support the SS20 with Solaris 8.
Bummer.
Of course, I put this in my submission about this story, along with the link to the machine itself but it got rejected :-(
M$ has never been able to port NT off of the x86.
If Sun can get 64 bits onto the desk top (they have the StarOffice suite for free,) the connectivity and reliability of Solaris and the horsepower of 64 bits at the low end will make M$ drop trou . It's all about TCO.
This is good news. Sun is positionning themselves to be the favored delivery platform for the next killer apps: Voice recognition and image interpretation. (the ears and eyes of the machine.) No more friggin' passwords. The machine will see that its you!
The Mac content-creators who have stayed loyal all these years aren't about to defect.
This is an end-run against M$ Maginot line.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Sun Microsystems Inc. will unveil Tuesday its first Unix workstation priced less than $1,000 as it tries to regain ground lost to competitors. - Feb 27 12:34 AM ET
The system comes with 256k of Cache. That is why it is cheap. My Ultra 10 has 2 Megs of L2 Cache which greatly imporves the speed. the 256k of cashe will slow down the system a lot espectly with Solaris which uses a lot of memory. Cache is one of those forgottin aspect in computer arcecture that companies are getting rid of so they can put more money into faster MHZ. Which dosent really help sience it will take more time to read from the memory. People should take a computer Archecture course (and I should take a spelling cource) so they know how system perfomace actually increaces speed and not just look at the MHZ or even the fact that it is 64 or 32 bit.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Not to be repetitive; but it's on Suns homepage and in the store. Not to mention that I just ordered one and they're only three days backordered (Shcoking).
-brian -- Brian D. McGrew { brian at visionpro dot com } --- > But his grip on his santiy hovers somewhere bet
http://www.sun.com/desktop/sunblade1000/ B-
USB is used for the keyboard/mouse interface for all new Sun machines since the SunRay - So far, that's the sunrays and the sunblades. I believe logitech makes the actual keyboards.
Solaris 8 also supports various other USB devices, which would presumably be listed in the HCL.
The upside to this, of course, is if you work on a Sun layout keyboard, you can hang a USB sun keyboard off your linux or windows desktop and not have to mentally switch to that annoying PC layout all the time. Plus, the mouse has 3 buttons :) The keyboard is P/N 320-1273 (US Unix) and the mouse is P/N 370-3632.
Why would Sun be scared of Linux? Sun is a hardware company, Linux is software. It's not like Sun makes any money on Solaris itself. Why should they care what OS you run on their computer so long as you're still buying hardware from them...
I picked up an Ultra 5 on a student deal last year. $1200 for a 360 Mhz system w/ 10 gig EIDE, 128MB ram, etc. Some of the best money I've ever spent on my education. There's nothing like having a private box to repeatedly mess up to learn the guts of a platform.
Comparing Mhz on different architectures is like comparing RPM on different engine designs. Sure, the numbers are vaguely related to performance, but my Ford Aspire with its blender of an engine probably puts out less power red-lining than some trucks do when they're idleing.
Sun pulls all kinds of cool tricks like memory striping, and don't forget that we're talking about a 64-bit (sparc) vs. 32-bit (x86) processor. Your milage may vary, but my experience has been that my Ultra 5 runs circles around my P3-650 on most data intensive tasks.
No kidding! When I called HP to find out how much some little plastic rails for mounting drives would cost, the quote came around $100. For little strips of plastic with holes in them!.
Needless to say, I found some plastic drive rails on a on Compaq PC that fit just fine...The clash of honour calls, to stand when others fall.
I just paid AU$2202. for an X1 from a sun distributer. With the Aussie doller sitting at US.525 its not that much more. That included 10% GST. This is the one that Sun claims is under $2000 on their web page and US$995.
Sure, Silicon Graphics is most likely not going to build a $995 IRIX/MIPS worktation with those specs (PC133 RAM, EIDE drives, ghetto 3D), but a $2000 - $3000 O2, $8000 Octane, or better yet, a line of 1U - 4U IRIX/MIPS rackmount servers would sure be nice. SGI has the world going for them, their customers would like to buy more of their systems, but pricing and exact models offered have been a pretty serious turn-off in recent months.
Not to mention that ghastly new "sgi" logo. Guess it fits their IA-32 and IA-64 systems, though.
Well.. if it's under $1000, you lucky US customers, Solaris would be more popular than Linux. :)
Anyway, I checked up the web site for the workstation. It has most of options like USB, Firewire, etc. So, I'm curious. How can it be that cheap? It even doesn't use Pentium chips.
It uses SUN Sparc processor.
Does SUN sell more computers than Apple? If so, why Apple can't build cheap machines? ( It may enjoy "Mass Production" benefit. )
I followed the link to look up the search results for +sun +blade (in the story), and the first thing that came up was a story about solar sails, which shows up as being posted on ./ 2 before the sun workstation.
:).
But back to the topic at hand, I wouldn't mind having a 64 bit machine to play with. Granted, I'd have to sell something to buy it, but maybe I could get some donations
The site hasn't been slashdotted! That's a real testiment to the quality of their machines, and how well they do as web servers.
On a side note, I think I'm going to get one of these machines. Not only have I always wanted a sun machine, but if your a student, they'll give you 30-40%off the price!
Regards,
Jason
While I expect sun will make some money on this, it isn't about money. Sun's bread nd butter is big machines. People have to program those big machines. They can now sell this to programers and contractors for home use. They at least gain expirence on the platform which is good for sun. Once you know the sun (solaris) platform going from this cheap box to a full E10k is easier. (Not easy because the E10k has lots of CPUs for your program to use)
Remember they might not be making money on this, but I doupt they are losing money either. This isn't about regaining ground. Sun isn't stupid enough to expect to be a blip on the low end computer sales charts. They don't need to be though. They need a machine for people to play with to convince themselves they know Sun.
HEre they are, as reported on slashdot....
this spec pdf for the sun blade 100 has a little more information... http://www.sun.com/desktop/sunblade100/sb100_ds.pd f
Why did I lurk so long before registering for a Slashdot account? I could have had a Slashdot ID of less than 100000.
I can see the status appeal of having a Sun box, but as a primary machine to me it seems like it would suck. What kind of driver support does Solaris have for the kinds of devices you want to hook up to your main machine? Like USB Zip drives (which they mention), digital camcorders, PCL printers, (USB?) modems, (USB and SCSI) scanners, sound cards, video cards, joysticks, and all the other good stuff.
well my gateway essential pc comes with a monitor, and one year of free internet, plus and MSN strong arm for teh next 4 years.
(err for you all that aint so quick that a joke there suun. get it sun) <-- thats a joke too
I'm with you i cant wait till I get one
If we refuse to be flexible, we are in effect opting out of the game of life. The world moves on without us.
an ultra 5 with a gray case. IDE disks, check. Peecee memory, check. Integrated PCI controller chipset, check. Low-end graphics, check. Save your money and buy a Blade 1000, kids. This one's not worth it unless you think the cute little Sun logo and a few pieces of sexy-looking gray and purple plastic are worth 500 bucks. It's a little better than a 5 (and will kill the market for them) but it's still a peecee. Now that the U2 has been discontinued, Sun no longer makes a system I would want - though I would probably use a Blade 1000 if someone gave me one, which is more than I can say for this hunk of junk.
And if you sign up for "maintenance" (read tech support that is even vaguely useful) you're going to drop a lot of money each year for that too. In some cases, more than you'll end up paying more than the cost of the machine. Until we got rid of it recently, at work we were paying $18,000 a year in maintenance for an Onyx/2 that was 3 years old. For reference, you can buy a $4000 PC now that is faster than the machine we had. Granted it was a great machine but we certainly were not getting our money's worth.
And people wonder why linux is gaining such a following...
If they'd just bite the bullet and put SCSI back in there where it belongs, it would make my life at work soooooo much easier...
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
A dual 450mhz machine (ultra60) costs about 12,000$ ... go build yourself a dual 1ghz machine with pc parts, probably cost around 2 grand.
So its not really about linux, but the cheap hardware linux runs on -- and that my friend -- is what keeps them up at night.
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
Sun hardware runs circles around Intel based hardware. My PII/400 is getting pretty old, and I was shopping around for a new computer (to bring my total to 4), and now that sun is finally building affordable systems I might have to pick one up (I can't wait until Uncle Sam sends me my Income Tax refund :-) ) Florida power will love my set up then (Linux/Intel Win/Intel Solaris/x86, and hopefully Solaris/SPARC )
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
Point being, it helps workflow to have everybody using the same OS and architecture. Even the work-study students and interns.
Whoever told you that is wrong. The SS20 is a sun4m and is still fully supported in Solaris 8. Only sun4c (Sparc 1/2/IPC/etc.) & Voyager support were dropped in Solaris 8.
You can get a PCI card with a Celeron chip on it for $495 which will run many types of windows. I've installed a few of these.
Claric AKA brain isn't fast enough today
--
There's no problem that cannot be solved with a suitable amount of high explosives
I have 3 SparcStations (two 1s and a 2). Very bumed that they dropped support in the latest version, but not too surprised.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Heheh. :)
Check out the newly opened Everything Solaris site - for unique Solaris related content in the same vain as Everything Linux!
It's a card with a full blown (AMD I think) x86 processor, it's own RAM, and it's own video card. You can display the video out it's own card into a seperate monitor, or you can display it via X onto a remote box or the local box. 8 bit color isn't to bad performance wise, but 24 is painful running remote X (part of the install comes with some local video driver extensions I believe that allow direct pass through for the local system).
To run the thing, you just fire up the SUNWpci binary and it boots up the baby x86 system in a window (bios settings available and everthing). Special utilities within the Windows drivers allow for cut and paste. The x86 system gets it's own IP and pretty much acts totally seperate. It's file system is stored in a single ufs file, which is rather nice because you can create a known good installation, then back it up and revert or copy it around if need be. All in all, the whole system was pretty cool, especially for getting your Outlook mail...:-)
It's about what you do with what you've got. My end users require several different applications to work on a nearly 24x7 basis, some ported from Unix to NT, some not. Some of the ports just don't work worth a damn, regardless of the benchmarked speed of the host system.
This, for me, is a great chance to halt the false economy introduced by corporate, that is, that Intel+Windows equals a much cheaper system. It may on their balance sheet, but not in the design bay where GPF errors and junky ports rule the day.
Display some adaptability.
From the comments I've read earlier, I can conclude that the system in question has quite modest performance, which is inferior for instance to a $1K PC. However, I do think that Sun is going in the right direction. Sun began to understand that there are many people (like us) who are not bound to Wintel, and may appreciate a cheap system.
For many of the tasks I do, it doesn't really matter for me what powers my system, as long as it is effective enough, and it's UNIX. SPARCs are renowned for their scalability and stability.
It is too bad that Sun can't make cheap and good SPARC boxes (their production not sufficient for a dramatic drop of price). However, when the price becomes low enough, and I can get a decent configuration, I will seriously consider getting such a box.
You can't put *any* video card in a mac costing less than US$1000.
Youre saying that a 64 bit bus makes no difference to the previous 32 bit/Sun proprietary bus? This is a big improvement over previous Sun offerings.
The point is not that your super-l33t P4-1.7GHz with it's Geforce2UltraMegaloMaxi 1000 running WinME gets a better framerate than a Sun Blade 100 in Quake, the point is that this machine will be attractive to people who don't want a little PC to impress their friends with, but actually want to get real work done on a UNIX platform that has extremely wide adoption within the mid-to-high end server and scientific computing markets.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
For anybody in the know if you want Sun hardware and a good price you go to an outfit like Rave(www.rave.com) and buy Sun OEM hardware cheap.
I wonder, however, if this is a harbinger of Sun looking to discontinue its OEM sales to places like Rave? I sure hope not, Rave puts Sun to shame when it comes to support and customer service.
I feel like I might be feeding a troll here ...
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
And if i want to buy one of these beasts outside of finland, customs will tax me to death, allthou i dont really consider buying one.
--
yush
Can be found on the Sun Blade 100 Workstation page.
That's the really big news here. The thing that has always kept me from buying a SPARC before is that event though the teaser price was low enough, you could easily add 50% once you bought a useful amount of memory.Now you can just trot down to your local Mom and Pop computer store. Of course, the only real reason to run SPARC/Solaris is to run the Sun Workshop Memory debugger and Performance Analyzer tools, and they are still rediculously overpriced. Maybe Sun will eventually figure out there is a market for this if the price is right. But I doubt it.
The Sunblade 1000 is a III. This 100 is a IIe
i dunno about the rest of you, but after checking suns website at http://store.sun.com/webconfig/BuildConfig.jhtml;$ sessionid$4EZMYZIAAAIZVAMTA1ESPJT5AAAACJ1K
w/ the prices listed the way they are.. it looks like they base model is $10k ? $14k for a medium and $19k for a "large" wtf is this a pizza ? either these are typos or a lot of new organizations can't read