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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?
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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
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)
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
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.
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.
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.
Yes, Virginia. There is a Gnome for Solaris.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
Sun sells OEM mobos that can run Solaris, and there are a few manufacturers out there, though I think Axil is gone.. Fujitsu builds some enterprise-class sparc systems, and I worked on a system built by a japanese or korean company (forget which) that was just an AXi base IIRC.. Also, Integrix builds OEM systems, though I've only used their pizza-box RAIDs before..
You might be able to build your own, but these days finding a 250 or 450 on ebay may be cheaper...
So you can make the program portable even when it isn't portable? ;-)
--
If you moderate this, then your children will be next.
Heck yeah , Fujitsu , Tatung , Toshiba just to name a few.
Check out www.sparc.com for lists of members of the Sparc consortium.
The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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
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
"An object declared as type _Bool is large enough to store the values 0 and 1." -- 6.1.2.5, C99 standard.
found some good stuff there
this used to be a good site.
that's a good place for solaris software