Slashdot Mirror
New Tadpole SPARCbook RSN
Jon Masters wrote to us in regards to the SPARCBook 6500 from Tadpole. Solaris 9, 4 gigs of RAM and all that - but with the TiBooks and Linux working on laptops, how much do people need Solaris laptops?
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
There are some apps that people need to run on Solaris on a mobile workstation -- government comes to mind.
with the TiBooks and Linux working on laptops, how much do people need Solaris laptops?
Where else can you get a 64-bit laptop?
Solaris notebooks will satisfy their own market niche - users who need a stable, secure Unix with good development tools. Linux notebooks will be available for the rest of the Unix market.
Dr. Joseph Hairston
Superintendent, CCBC
Look at the yellow, circlish image... "available in winter 2002".
Yes, at this point the advantages of a Solaris laptop are a pittance compared with what else is out there.
Most user applications that demand laptop portability are met with x86 hardware or a Mac running Powerpoint.
Even if Sun had had the benefit of Intel's economies of scale so that we'd be using UltraSPARC V's by now, they still would have difficulty selling the laptop to any market except perhaps Solaris field engineers.
64 bit addressing and Solaris 9 is a great boon for folks running databases on big iron, but I just can't see what it buys you on a laptop.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
You missed something.
The page says that the version with Solaris 9 and 4GB RAM is due in winter 2002.
- Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity.
- An administrator of a fully SPARC-based network
- Someone in scientific or industrial applications who need more than the 1 GB RAM that the TiBook supplies; with these specs (4 GB RAM, 160 GB max harddisk) it could even work quite well as a demonstration or temporary replacement server
- Someone with legacy Solaris programs that they need to make transportable
- A person who develops for Solaris
- Someone who just plain prefers Solaris to Linux (believe it or not, they exist)
Just because you personally do not have a use for this device does not mean that no one has a use for it.These sort of things are great to use as portable demo systems for software that runs on solaris. I've seen some older x86 laptops running solaris for this purpose (don't ask me, I didn't install them)
At the bottom, it says 2GB of DRAM, Solaris 8.
The Specification page says 2GB ECC SDRAM, Solaris 8.
The PDF Datasheet says "2GB ECC SDRAM, 4 slots PC 133 SODIMMs (unbuffered, ECC)" and "Solaris 8"
My guess is it's a last minute update.
Now for something with real bizarre appeal you need to go for...S/390 on a laptop. Yes folks thats right, the great big clunking mainframe in the backroom running on your own Thinkpad.
Solaris is for wimps, I wouldn't go anywhere without my portable mainframe system.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
If you're developing software with six layers of abstraction between you and the box, buy all means by a PowerBook (they're ever cute), and develop it there. I'm sitting here next to an HP workstation for which I had to write 5000 lines of C for a particularly stressed application. Writing it using my (more powerful) Linux box and porting it over would have been a huge mistake.
In using a close match for the target platform I discovered a bug in their libraries that I would not have otherwise caught, and was familiar enough with the debugging utilities of the box to use them remotely on the servers on which this app. lived. Since I had written the app. at exactly the same OS level as the target system, I new it wasn't a porting bug and that it wasn't a version bug. This saved me time far more valuble than the cost of my HP workstation. People who look down their noses at this laptop either code at very high levels or don't code at all.
Believe it or not, there are still people that haven't ported their software to linux. They need Solaris laptops (or worse yet, they lug around a workstation) to show off their wares to potential customers.
Personally, I think it's silly. Porting to linux is a great idea for a number of reasons, the ability to run on a plethora of cheap laptops not being the least.
and the ability to run your applications without rebuilding.
Plus if your trying to sell something that runs on Solaris wouldn't it be good to demo it on solaris? For example, if the customer cannot come to you.
Also as far as server fail-over you could use one of these temporarily to host a webserver, db, hell anything you want. If the battery works like most laptops it would last at least 1 hour with a heavy load and 2+ with a moderate load. Try that with a UPS for around $8000 (SPARCs are damn expensive).
but with the TiBooks and Linux working on laptops, how much do people need Solaris laptops?
Because you need that kind of firepower to adequately run StarOffice(TM).
-- yawn. --
You may have Solaris apps or need to test against a sparc. That or you just can't find a TiBook with ->4gigs- of RAM.
I honestly worry about the number of brain cells that Hemos and others like him are firing on, at times.
Every single time an article about Sun/Solaris comes out, someone (often the original poster) will say, "but Linux does xxx, so we don't need this!"
Everybody chant the following mantra: Solaris is not Linux. Linux is not Solaris. There is room for both.
Do we need this laptop? Well hell, do we need laptops at all? Is there some reason we NEED a Linux laptop over one running Win2k? Of course not!
That said, some things are easier under Linux that Windows. (and vice versa!) Some things are more mature under Solaris than Linux (or maybe all things?). Some people prefer Solaris, some prefer Linux, some prefer Windows, and some preferred OS/2. WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY do we have to say "but Linux..." EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TIME ANYTHING ABOUT ANY OTHER PLATFORM IS MENTIONED?????
OK, rant off. Just had to get that off my chest.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
When did you last meet a CFO who ran a Sparc workstation? It's simple: the people who make the decisions use Windows and MS Office.
"The new wave is not value-added; it's garbage-subtracted" - Esther Dyson, Dec 1994
You can see it clearly in the datasheet here:s parcboo k/datasheet.pdf
;)
http://hw.tadpole.com/pdf/products/mobile/
at zoom level of 800% or so.
What is that key between tab and shift? This has to be a mistake. Do they really expect any self-respecting Unix user will by this???
Prejudice aside, I think I want this toy even more than Zaurus. I wonder if FreeBSD 5.0 will work on it
And yes, there are people who really do need it.
I passed the Turing test.
Just because the OS runs there, it doesn't mean that the applications run there as well. MIPS and Alpha NT were great examples of this. So is Sparc versus x86 solaris.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
solaris is a server OS and is likely going to serve files to windows users, the point is to stop viri before before some dumb ass in acounting double clicks on that happy.exe file that was in his email
I've got Solaris x86 running on Toshiba 4020CDT laptop and I use it like a server. I've got Apache, MySQL, and PHP running a copy of OpenDB for my group at work. I'm very impressed with the performance of a machine that was lumbering along with Windows 2000.
And with the battery, it's has a builtin UPS!
Sure, I could have used Linux. But I mostly use Solaris for work, so I chose to work with an operating system I'm more familiar with.
Define "64-bit" for a personal computer.
Are you simple? It's one thing to say "What do I need this for." It's another thing to try and claim that your 32 bit computer is 64 bit.
The Slashdot crowd are the Beavis & Butthead of the IT industry. Well, maybe not all of you. :)
J.
I'm not a huge SUN fan, from a business standpoint, but this actually has some merit. I can see some applications for admins, engineers, etc., though still a niche-market. They say that even a mouse will fight a lion if backed into a corner. So it's interesting to see the last death throes of Sun. I just don't think this strategy is the kind of thing that makes sense.
--RIP DMC, here's some 40 for me, and some for my homies.
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
*lol*
--
If you moderate this, then your children will be next.
I didn't know other OEMs besides Sun used the SPARC processors. Are there any other OEM besides Tadpole and Sun that make SPARC based machines?
but with the TiBooks and Linux working on laptops, how much do people need Solaris laptops?
Well, I can tell you that there are certainly a number of users in the military as well as applications that certain government and quasi government agencies use running on Solaris. A few years ago at the Whitehouse, I noticed a number of Solaris workstations and the first laptop running Solaris I had ever seen. I don't know about things currently, but I expect there to be more Windows machines there now than there used to be. Although our Veep Dick Cheney appears to use a TiBook.....
Additionally, the TiBook is limited to 1GB of RAM (hardware limited NOT the OS which can address much more) and there are number of users in the sciences and video editing markets who would like portable 2GB workstations, but given Apple's focus on video editing, I would expect the next TiBook revision (not the one next week) will address more RAM.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
how much do people need Solaris laptops?
Choice. Sure we balk at Microsoft people asking why anyone needs to run Linux, then we turn around and balk at someone for creating a Solaris laptop.
I think its cool, I'd like to get one for work, we use a number of Solaris only apps.
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
"Broken, stupid compilers". You think GCC is broken? If you don't like the compiler you're given to use, find a diferent one.
"braindead default configs". No such thing as a default config on oslaris, talk to the people who installed it.
"a useless, trash desktop". I use Gnome and KDE for my Sun box. Once again, if you dont like the tools you are given, use somthing else. Soalris 9 ships with Gnome now, KDE can be downloaded pre compiled. So what's the problem?
It sounds like you have some poorly configured Solaris systems. However that in no way means that Solaris is the problem. As they say PEBCAK (Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard).
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Yes, Virginia. There is a Gnome for Solaris.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
So you can make the program portable even when it isn't portable? ;-)
--
If you moderate this, then your children will be next.
Except at Sun.
What if I do not want to feed the lesser known but equally evil half of the Wintel duopoly, and the TiBooks are either not good enough for me or produced by a equally evil company I do not trust.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Assignment: put yourself in a situation in which you have to deal with the Teamsters. I bet you hate it.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Broken, stupid compilers; braindead default configs; a useless, trash desktop; lackluster performance; finicky printer queues; workstations that inexplicably lock up and refuse to log out; header files and libraries with all kinds of wonky problems; etc...
Any OS is gonna run like crap if it's not configured right, so I won't go into that.
If you don't like the defaults that come with Solaris, you can get quite a bit of GNU and other stuff from Sunfreeware
/*drunk.. fix later*/
Now that you mention it I think my trs-80 laptop is 64-bit because it can add two 64-bit numbers.
This space intentionally left blank.
Anyone know of a rough performance comparison between linux apps running on a UltraSPARC-IIi 650MHz processor VS a new P4 or Athlon XP? This seems like a very nice laptop but I'm not at all familiar with Sparc processor performance...
Russian Russian Russian RussianDollSig DollSig DollSig DollSig
In my youth, I actually transitioned from Apple ][ to Sun. I didn't buy my first PC until 1994 and then only to run FreeBSD on it. I was a big fan of Suns for a long time, which was tough to do given the pricing.
I wound up at one point doing some contracting for Axil. I still remember those days fondly. Among other products, Axil made a board called the Axilerate which was a drop-in replacement for the Sparcstation 1, 1+ or 2 motherboard which featured a Microsparc 2 CPU. In essence, you could upgrade your machine to the equivalent of a Sparcstation 5. I thought it was a great product (obviously modern machines are on a whole different level). Axil didn't have any sort of employee/contractor purchase program. I actually had to go to a reseller to buy my Axilerate board.
It was a shame when the asian flu hit Hyundai, which was Axil's parent company. In a cost-cutting measure, Hyundai shuttered Axil, which at the time was the #2 manufacturer of Sparc based computers (#3 was almost as far behind Axil as Axil was from Sun).
So, by that logic, is my quad-pentium machine a 128-bit box?
-twb
I would recommend giving this vendor a try:
http://xtremenotebooks.com/index.html
Laptops without an OS pre-installed are possible through them and they at least appear to be reasonably priced per included laptop features. I once purchased an IBM laptop with linux pre-installed but I think they have since discontinued that option...
Russian Russian Russian RussianDollSig DollSig DollSig DollSig
I was hoping it would share some other great features with Sun servers, but alas, I'll have to wait for a laptop with hot swappable CPU and memory modules ..
... I've only played with one (mmm, trade shows), but they're solid and fast little buggers. Heavy, and the battery life isn't very good, but if you need a Solaris workstation on the road ..
... at the time (mid-ninties), it was a rocket! They pop up from time-to-time on eBay .. usually a few hundred bucks now, as opposed to several thousand dollars back in the day.
.. for about $1000, you too could own a REAL beowulf cluster, running on Sun hardware! Now that's something to write home about, even if your nodes are only running at 25MHz .. but even then, you'd still be surprised at what they can do.
Sarcasm aside, Tadpole makes some great products. They've been building laptops that put most others to shame for years
My other favorite style of Sparc system was the Ross SPARCplug. It was a full server, packed into a two (or three?) 5.25 inch drive bays. Stick it in your PC, plug in a network cable, and pow -- stealth server! Dual hypersparc CPUs, 256MB of RAM, SCSI, 100Base/T ethernet
Hmm. You can also find raftloads of old IPXes and stuff, for dirt cheap (usually under $100). Tons of fun. Beats the pants off of a low end PDA for cheap thrills.
Just think
I got a Tadpole Sparcbook 2 from work. About a month later, my apartment was broken into and it, among other things was stolen. So my girlfriend was calling all the local pawn shops to make sure they would keep an eye out for it. I came through the door on such a call and she said 'I'm tired of dealing with this guy, he wants to talk to you'. And so I answered and he asked what type of Laptop it was, and I replied with Tadpole Sparcbook 2. He said he didn't recognize the brand and if it was Intel or a Mac, and I said neither, it is a Sparc, and he replied that all computers were either Intel or Mac, even if rebranded something else. He asked if it ran DOS or Mac, and I said "SunOS". He said he didn't want to know the application I run on it, but what comes up when I turn it on before running anything. Finally I said 'If something comes into your store that looks like a laptop but you don't know what the hell it exactly is, it's probably mine...
Evidently no one else knew enough to buy it either, and so when they caught the guy a year later, that was the only thing of ours they had not managed to offload. When I went to the police to reclaim it, I was fully prepared to go to lengths to show I knew the password, but they said 'just take it'. Then an officer asked me if that was a good brand of laptop and would I recommend it for their college aged kid....
Oh the nostalgia working on that brings me... SunOS 4.1.1... As an aside, anyone know where I could get a replacement battery, software updates, and/or the little scsi plug adapter for this sucker?
Also have a new iBook (for when I need battery or don't want to take forever to do anything), and bought my Fiancee a PC laptop (linux/WinXP dual boot).
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
1 - Jump start. This is a beautiful box to ethernet over to your new server to install Solaris via jumpstart, especially if you need to do the install while off the net, e.g. a tripwired hardened server like a firewall running Checkpoint Firewall/1.
2 - CDE. So many of the admin tools for SunOne software are buggy in any version of X other than standard CDE. Examples are the directory/web server java based console.
3 - Portable development. Let's say that you are debugging Sparc assembly for a new device driver, or just testing your C code on a particular patch level of Solaris XYZ to find issues with the shared libraries, and you would rather sit in the coffee shop than in your dusty cube.
4 - Portable 64 bit processing. Particularly useful for math or physics types who want to crank out some data on the way to a conference or in the hotel room. (Yes, 1GB of RAM, but no limit on Swap. Not to mention REALLY big Ints.)
5 - Full solaris application testing environment. A wonderful thing to have to take to datacenters in other parts of the country which are not part of the corporate backbone yet to help you figure out why those new Websphere application servers cannot talk SSL LDAP over 636 to the new SunOne Directory Servers.
6 - I could keep going, but I have to get back to work.
jfs
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
main(){
printf("My computer is %d bits\n", sizeof( int) * 8);
}
They are 5000 to 8000 depending on the config. The new ones didn't have prices yet so the $8000 is for the 2GB system.
Actually prices aren't that bad when comparing to average Sun prices.
It may have a RISC processor, but does it have a 28 dot 8 modem in it?
...
Not so uncommon anymore, for various reasons, a large number of three button touchpad equipped laptops are available.
Thinkpads, for example have three buttons. Some HPs do as well. Some others I'm sure, but I haven't dealt with them...
I, on the other hand, have a one-button touchpad.... My optical 5-button,2 wheel mouse compensates though (not bad for 12 bucks...)
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
64 bit memory addresses are not just an issue when it comes to physical memory - that's the size of your virtual address space, too. Linux on a 32 bit system won't allow a process to consume more than 3GB of VM, no matter how much physical memory you have.
So the little yellow circle says "Available in Winter 2002." Hasn't that already passed in the Southern Hemisphere? Let's have those reviews, you upside-down people!
Isn't the US2i artificially limited to 2GB of RAM?
:)
The website seems to say that the laptop simultaneously has 4GB and 2GB. *THAT* is the power of Sun hardware.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
A few years ago, I travelled around Europe supporting my company's product on site. I'd try to fix a bug, then send the patch back to the US to be built (no source code could ever touch a client's computer). Turnaround times were over a day, due to the time change.
Then I got one of these (for hrumptyhrumptens of thousands of dollars). It paid for itself in a month. I could do builds on-site, leading to turaround times of less than an hour. I no longer had to get a hotel for most support visits! I sure had a need for a non-Linux notebook.
Of course, it radiated so much heat out the keyboard that my hands would just drench the thing in sweat. That got a little gross. But it worked like a champ.
Why isn't there a price on the freaking page? If I wanted to talk to someone on the phone, I wouldn't be using the web!
I mean, I'd really like a solaris laptop. It would beat the hell out of my portable rack rig. But damn it, I don't want to have to fend off sales reptiles just to find out how much it is.
All I can think is that they want to "personalize" the price based on how much money they think they can get out of you.
Learn to name files with the proper extension
./a.out
$ cat source.c
> main(){
> printf("My computer is %d bits\n", sizeof(int)\
* 8);
> }
> !
$ gcc source.c
$
My computer is 32 bits
Matt
Not true, the boot server has to be on the same subnet (the boot and install server do not have to be the same machine). And if you have control of the routers and can set up directed broadcast, even that might not be necessary.
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
have you visited sun ? (or do you work there ?)
:)
otherwise, i wouldn't be so sure theres no reliance on MS software at Sun
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Having a mobile sparc platform capable of running Oracle is something great in its own right; the cost of shipping an E250 to trade shows and customer sites for demos will be dramatically reduces, as well as engineers who can go on-site in more than one location per day to demo their app, I think it has some really good benefits.
eh. You guys clearly have never had a 64-bit box. An int is 32-bits on most 64-bit archs.
main(){
printf("My computer is %d bits\n", sizeof(void*) * 8);
}
And that's the first smart thing anyone on this thread has said - including me. Sales folks are the only one's I can really see buying this stuff, just so they can tote around a full DB and 'big app'. And I still can't imagine all that many sales. Not for the amount this thing is gonna cost.
. . .
When did you last meet a CFO who ran a Sparc workstation?
Try a CFO or other management financial officer at a trading house, broker - dealer, investment bank . . . . . plenty of trading floors are peppered with, if not standardised on apps which run on and are customised for, or developed in house for Solaris. Can't be f&*&^d to go dig out a list right now of deidcated apps like order flow processing, risk management progs . . . but how about this one for a start : Mathematica plus their financials add - ins plus really dang big set of market data, say your position close end of day. Now that's what a CFO might want to muse over on a laptop every now and then. OK, what I suggested won't be much good for those who run 24/7 books, and I'm only picking on one market sector (but you didn't specify) but i hope you get my drift.
It's simple: the people who make the decisions use Windows and MS Office. - Yes I often feel that's about all the decision - making tools some banks have been using in recent years :-) but your statement is clearly untrue in such a generality.
Nope, I've not met a CFO who did run a SPARC laptop. Maybe that's because Tadpole have been a lame duck of a useless company doing nothing and developing no new products for years. They seemed to focus more on selling whimsical stories to the London Stock Exchange. This new announcement is undoubtedly only happening because the SPARCBook team recently did an MBO (not really an MBO because so much of their financing came from the parent) to try to get free of the rest of the increasingly farcical company.
. . .
== Idle Random Thoughts - Usual Disclaimers Apply==
Even with the 36-bit extension, all current IA-32 processors are still 32-bit, because the 36-bit address space is physical, not virtual. The virtual address space is still 32-bits, and all pointers are still 32-bits, as well as all GPRs.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
If *you* want to carry a pizza-box Sun on Caltrain and use one of the few cars that still have electric outlets, go ahead...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
This is a month old however:
Tadpole has discounted our 500MHz IIe laptop with the 14.1" LCD
1024x768, with 20-60GB HDD and up to 2GB RAM. Let me know if you have any
interest.
500MHz IIe, 14.1"LCD, 20GB HDD, 256MB RAM $5,489.50
500MHz IIe, 14.1"LCD, 20GB HDD, 512MB RAM $5,939.25
500MHz IIe, 14.1"LCD, 20GB HDD, 1GB RAM $6,750.00
500MHz IIe, 14.1"LCD, 20GB HDD, 2GB RAM $8,730.50
can expand to 60GB HDD
Tadpole also announced a 650MHz IIe, up to 160GB HDD, 4GB RAM coming in
Dec., 2002
Dennis Vines
Sr. Account Manager
Tadpole
2300 Faraday Ave
Carlsbad, CA 92008
PH: 800-770-9003 x 216
FX: 760-931-1063
Email: dennisv@ca.tadpole.com
Portable Solaris Workstations and High Density Servers providing
solutions from the Rack to the Road
My computer is 8 bits
Wow, I didn't know my Pentium II box was 8 bit! Oh whoops, I did sizeof(void) instead of sizeof(void *). Still, I was quite surprised for a while ;)
> Do they really expect any self-respecting Unix
> user will by this???
By which I assume you mean, "Do they really expect any self-respecting Unix user to pass this up?"
From Dictionary.com:
----------
bye1 also by Pronunciation Key (b)
n.
1. A secondary matter; a side issue.
2. Sports. The position of one who draws no opponent for a round in a tournament and so advances to the next round.
----------
Oh, ho ho ho! I do so love myself. Anyway, I remap every keyboard I touch, much to my officemates' chagrin. CapsLock makes a fine control.
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
I work in a large Sun shop and work with Sun staff all the time and they have flown me into Sun in the Silicon Valley for visits. I have only seen one Sun staffer over the years use a Sparc laptop. Even that person griped about what a dog it was. Most the Sun staff I've seen have your typical x86 laptop. Some run Solaris x86 when they can (a lot of compatiblility issues) and the rest I see run some combo of Linux and Windows.
Biggest problem with Sparc laptop are cost. Just not enough bang for the buck compared to an x86 laptop.
It isn't a Solaris Laptop, it's a SPARC/Linux laptop. :-)
- mark
-----
I tried an internal modem, but it hurt when I walked.
But is 32-bit always worse in practice than 64-bit?
Actually, 64-bit is usually worse in practice than 32-bit, all other things being equal. Many processors let you compile code for 32-bit pointers or 64-bit pointers; the MIPS R10000 family is the one I'm familiar with. The same code compiled for the 32-bit ABI will either run at the same speed as the 64-bit version, or it will be faster. The difference is caused by cache performance. If your pointer is twice as big, you can only squeeze half of 'em into the same caches. Thus, more cache misses, and decreased performance of the application overall.
Unless you need more than 2 GB of virtual memory for your program, you should compile it with 32-bit pointers.
I write in my journal
I've never done any real programming on a Sun, but on an SGI you have to specifically tell the compiler to compile to a 64-bit ABI if you want to use 64-bit pointers. The syntax is "cc -64 -whatever foo.c." If you omit the -64 flag, you get a 32-bit binary. The same may be true on a Sun.
I write in my journal
Just because a document is published in Excel format it doesn't mean that it was generated by Microsoft Excel. StarOffice can export as well a import Microsoft formats.
I do work at Sun. We have a program called Sun-on-Sun which means we run the buisness on Sun hardware and where possible Sun Software.
StarOffice is used when spreadsheets are used. In general all our Microsoft Office like needs are met by StarOffice today and in the past (prior to Sun aquiring Star Division) Applix was used. There is still some use of Framemaker for very large and complex documents.
I stand corrected.
Yep, On Sun you need to specify cc -xarch=v9 foo.c and you'll get 64 bit programs. You also need the Forte C compiler to do it.
"An object declared as type _Bool is large enough to store the values 0 and 1." -- 6.1.2.5, C99 standard.
Tadpole once made a pretty spiffy Intel-based laptop computer, circa 1995 or thereabouts. Other than the processor (it had a 120- or 133-MHz Pentium), it had everything their SPARC-based laptops had at the time, including built-in SCSI (the internal HDD was also SCSI) and a 3-button Trackpoint-like stick. I believe that was their only Intel-based laptop, though; most people don't seem to appreciate over-engineered products like theirs.
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
Me, I _am_ a fan of Sun. I think they have a disproportionately bad rap for a company that has offered real innovation in the computing industry. Sure, they haven't done anything really revolutionary in the last year or two, but being the "dot in .com" I understand that they're just trying to keep afloat. I'm sure they'll make it through.
However, it's pretty hard to justify buying even their low-end hardware. I wonder how much this laptop is? (Yes, I realize it's not from Sun...) There was no mention of price on the site.
I know, probably one of those "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" laptops. Seriously, though, any idea of an estimated cost? (Even unofficial...)
found some good stuff there
this used to be a good site.
that's a good place for solaris software
Do you have a floppy for thing? If you can track one down, just to a net install of OpenBSD or Netbsd, I think both have X support. Also I know Solaris 2.6 stock will run pretty well on a Sparcbook 3 ("well" is a relative term). Usenet is the place for finding parts these days.
No, I just think that someone sees it at +4 funny and mods it up as something diffrent because it is suppose to add to the comeadic value.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Believe me, banks do not have Unix workstations on trading floors. The Database servers are Unix, and much of the back-end systems are Unix, but the screens in front of a trader are windows. Likewise the managers will have very good P&L breakdowns and exposure analytics, but they are just a report generated by some query. You don't need a SPARC to read a report. This is true in the least for Paribas, UBS, Deutche and JPMorgan.
As to the second point, I think you misunderstand what I was getting at. The original poster was asking why their marketing bumph was in MS proprietary formats. I answered that the poeple who look at marketing bumph will have a Windows machine on which to look at it. I wasn't talking about generic decision makers in a bank.
"The new wave is not value-added; it's garbage-subtracted" - Esther Dyson, Dec 1994
Being pedantic and all, that should actually be
#include <limits.h>
#include <stdio.h>
int
main(void)
{
printf("My computer is %zd bits\n", sizeof(void*) * CHAR_BIT);
return 0;
}
since there's no guaranty that you're machine will have 8-bit bytes.
How about sales guys doing demos for applications written for Solaris sparc? Why spend the development $$$ to port to Solaris x86 just for sales guys to do demos when you can get a few of these babies to hand out to the sales guys.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
You may not believe me when I say this, but I'm really glad you showed me that constant. I try not to be outwardly pedantic, because it puts people off (or maybe it's my bad breath). But I shudder when I have to hardcode something like 8 bits per byte.
-Paul Komarek
[Apologies to Monty Python for stealing their punch line]
gcc and Compaq's cc on Alpha automatically use 64 bit pointers and 32 bit ints. Perhaps this is because the Alpha has always been a 64 bit cpu?
-Paul Komarek
Can't post reviews... Too busy watching the water in the sink swirl around the wrong way.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I hate it when my pointer is twice as big and I can only squeeze half of it into the caches. Cache misses suck, and definately decrease the performance of the whole thing. Damn straight.
Derek@killmykarma.edu
After being a long-time Solaris user, the steep price of the Tadpole was the last straw when I needed a UNIX laptop--that's what made me switch to Linux, and I have never looked back.
[From the naturetech website]
"We see it reasonable that list pricing for 888P and 888P+ should be within the range of $6,000 to $9,000" said Sam Chen, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing," and have confidence that no other similar can compete with this price-performance in the market."
If this is to be considered reasonable, I think it is fairly safe to say I won't be owning one. While there are some features in there which appeal to me(built-in SCSI, but no mention of whether the HD is SCSI) it had better be every bit as fast as my desktop for that price. I do realize that one should expect to pay a premium for a portable SPARC laptop but that is in the range of "I want to see it before I buy it.".
Russian Russian Russian RussianDollSig DollSig DollSig DollSig
Guido to bitch slap Linus.
Someone should have moderated this post up as funny.
"call Sun on the phone and talk to the guy who wrote the component"
You just KILL me...
You're better than Yakov Smirnoff.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.