The final demise of SUN Sparc workstations?
sir...@gmail.com
any Sparc workstation (like the Ultra 45) from SUN? I knew this day
was coming. They had not really updated the line in a long time. But
I will miss these machines. True you can do a great deal on X86
hardware running Solaris or Linux, but not everything. And they are
(were) wonderful boxes to learn some things on, instead of having to
always have access to big iron.
Maybe Fujitsu is still selling Sparc workstations, so maybe all is not
lost. :)
Paul Gress
I've noticed that also. The best Sparc processor is IIIi for a
Workstation and now their at VII for their servers. I guess its a
Graphics Bus/Card issue. I thought the Rock chip was suppose to be for
Workstations, with improved floating point performance.
Any way, it may be a good idea to check out Fujitsu and see their
product line.
Paul
erik magnuson
I hadn't noticed till you mentioned it. :(
My guess is that TI/Sun has phased out manufacture of the normal US-IIIi
chips as the only systems available with the US-IIIi's are the Netra
210/240/44 with 1.3 GHz US-IIIi's.
I agree in that it would be interesting to see a workstation with the
latest Fujitsu chip - it would blow the doors off of the U-45.
- Erik
mihalis68
> Has anyone else noticed that you can no longer order (at least online)
> any Sparc workstation (like the Ultra 45) from SUN? I knew this day
> was coming. They had not really updated the line in a long time. But
> I will miss these machines.
I'll miss them too, I had a great time working on them for about 12
years or so. Note that you can still get a few remanufactured
workstations at Sun's fantasy prices - $2900 for a 550 Mhz Sun Blade
150, for example.
I don't know exactly when Sun gave up on competing with PCs on price/
performance with SPARC, but it was a long long time ago and since then
it's been an exercise in milking the installed base for all its worth.
I think perhaps Ultra 10 was the last good deal. After that we had the
weak sb100/150 and the far too expensive SB1000/2000. By the time the
UltraSPARC-IIIi machines came out my product (sparc/solaris native
client software for a high-end financial software company) was DEAD.
I eventually got an SB2500 at work and indeed it was smoking fast and
wonderful, but much too late. By then you were seeing pallets of sun
sparc workstations on Ebay going for a few cents on the pound. I was
thinking that they were the trash being removed from entire trading
floors consolidating onto PCs.
Ok so yes Sun eventually made some nice PC-based workstations (I have
an Ultra40) but there was that unfortunate wobble where they nearly
killed Solaris x86. At this stage I would have been forced to go to
Linux if I still had a Unix based product at all. But we'd gone
entirely Windows and being a Sun/Solaris guy on the workstation side
of things was a career limiting move.
Maybe one future workstation size box will sneak out of Sun at some
point - like a SPARC64 in a box or even an UltraSPARC T1, but the
glory days of proper Sun workstations are gone forever. Somebody
oughta write a book or something...
Chris
CJT
The move to Mac hasn't helped.
--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
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Benjamin Gawert
> Has anyone else noticed that you can no longer order (at least online)
> any Sparc workstation (like the Ultra 45) from SUN?
Yes, right after reading your post ;-)
> I knew this day
> was coming. They had not really updated the line in a long time. But
> I will miss these machines. True you can do a great deal on X86
> hardware running Solaris or Linux, but not everything.
I'm sure SPARC at some not too far away time will end up like other
traditional RISC architectures like SGI/MIPS or (with end of this year)
HP PA-RISC.
I hope Sun comes out with a nice dual XEON workstation now.
Benjamin
John D Groenveld
A single socket quad core mobile workstation would be nice too
and also overdue.
John
groe...@acm.org
Paul Gress
> A single socket quad core mobile workstation would be nice too
> and also overdue.
>
> John
> groe...@acm.org
Here:
http://www.clevo.com.tw/en/products/prodinfo_2.asp?productid=19
Can be purchased here:
Trinean
> and also overdue.
If Sun did make a laptop of their own I'd like one with a T1 or T2
coolthreads CPU.
Seems like a good choice for a laptop since it is energy efficient, but also
powerful enough to run application and Solaris 10.
Why all SPARC based desktops are going EOL is sad.
The market may not be too big, but at least keeping the latest Ultra 25 and
45 models around for those that want them would seem to be a smart move.
Trinean
John D Groenveld
Paul Gress <pgr...@pb.net> wrote:
>Can be purchased here:
>
>http://www.polywell.com/us/notebook/PolyNoteC719ND.asp
I've not purchased from Polywell, but I bought my Clevo 570RU
from Sager Midern.
The new 8GB ram quad core Clevo is here:
<URL:http://www.sagernotebook.com/product_customed.php?pid=29175&action=customize>
I've had the 570RU since the fall and love it.
I upgraded to 4GB ram and Solaris Express and Vista screams.
Currently booted Vista 32-bit because I can't get OpenVPN to
work and I need to VPN to a Cisco, but mostly I boot Nevada.
I also recently needed to boot Vista to use the built-in
camera and an external USB Java card reader.
John
groe...@acm.org
Paul Gress
> In article <488ce690$0$5015$607e...@cv.net>,
> Paul Gress <pgr...@pb.net> wrote:
>> Can be purchased here:
>>
>> http://www.polywell.com/us/notebook/PolyNoteC719ND.asp
>
> I've not purchased from Polywell, but I bought my Clevo 570RU
> from Sager Midern.
>
> The new 8GB ram quad core Clevo is here:
> <URL:http://www.sagernotebook.com/product_customed.php?pid=29175&action=customize>
>
I currently have that Clevo model (D901C), purchased it from Polywell.
Have the latest SXCE snv94 installed with 4 gig of ram. It's much
faster then my W2100Z. The link you sent shows it can now be had with 8
gig of ram. Now I need to upgrade the BIOS. I'm only using the Dual
Core at 3.0 gig and the Quatro FX1600M graphics, runs my CAD better then
my Wortkstation. Extremely happy.
Also have my Cad running on a Blade 2500. I've been always waiting for
a newer Workstation that would compete with the PC Workstations, but I
guess I'll never see that. It's a shame, I still have more software
running on my Blade 2500, such as Framemaker, Acroreader (soon to be
released on X86), and various addins for my Cad (Pro/E).
Paul
sir...@gmail.com
Just got off the phone with a Fujitsu rep. No SPARC workstations in
their lineup, either (at least the current line-up). He said they are
doing some pretty good things with the next family of SPARC
processors, but he doubts they will put it in a workstation format.
He just does not see the market is there for it. Of course, my
opinion would be that there might be a market for them if 1) the
prices were not crazy, and 2) the performance kept pace with Intel and
AMD. But neither of those things is really feasible at this point in
time.
They (Fujitsu) offer plenty of Intel and AMD options, though, just
like Sun. But unless anyone knows of any other vendor, it seems the
SPARC workstation has officially gone the way of the dodo. The
Fujitsu guy said their server business is brisk, so maybe SPARC itself
still has some life . . . and since I have been playing with an M8000
and some small T2-based boxes, I know there are some pretty nice
things out there that perhaps only IBM bigger iron otherwise can do.
P.S. Benjamin, while it does not look like Sun is doing a dual proc
Intel workstation (they are doing a dual proc AMD workstation, and a
single proc quad-core Intel workstation), it does look like Fujitsu
has one. It is the Celsius R550; at it looks like it can take two
54xx Intel procs. Maybe your company only deals with Sun, but in case
they do not, I thought I would let you know. We have found the
support to be similar to Sun's (fairly good)--but maybe that is
because of the amount we purchase from each.
Benjamin Gawert
> P.S. Benjamin, while it does not look like Sun is doing a dual proc
> Intel workstation (they are doing a dual proc AMD workstation, and a
> single proc quad-core Intel workstation), it does look like Fujitsu
> has one.
It's FSC (Fujitsu-Siemens), not Fujitsu. And yes, I know that they offer
dual processor x86 workstations.
> It is the Celsius R550; at it looks like it can take two
> 54xx Intel procs. Maybe your company only deals with Sun, but in case
> they do not, I thought I would let you know.
I know FSC and had several workstations and servers from them already.
The built quality of their Celsius workstation is in no way comparable
from the offerings of Sun, HP, or IBM (now Lenovo). And the service (at
least in Germany) is a bad joke at best. On my former workplace when we
had Sun the Sun service wasn't perfect by any means but far better than
what FSC offers. For example, just try to replace a simple broken tape
drive of a FSC server within warranty. While for example HP has a 3 year
onsite replacement warranty for their drives which means after a call
you get a new one delivered to your door at next business day (you just
put the old drive in the package and it gets collected at your
convenience without any cost for you) FSC has a terrible painful process
(call FSC support, fax them the invoice, and obtain a shipment number
from them; with that number you have to log on a website, fill out a
form or if it is down again you call another number, give them all your
data that you gave FSC already and request a new drive being shipped to
you; it only takes two to three weeks for you to get the new drive and
then you have to ship the old drive back at your own costs). The
workstation service is equally crap. Parts that can are easily available
for systems from other manufacturers are either not available at all or
FSC refuses to sell to you and insists going to an autorized FSC dealer
which of course will not just order the part for you but requires you to
have the work done by him.
Unlike Dell, HP or Sun FSC seems to have difficulties selling their PCs,
and it looks like Siemens will pull out of FSC which means the whole PC
part will probably go down the drain. This together with the bad service
and the fact that almost all other vendors are cheaper than FSC makes me
recommending to stay away from x86 products of this company.
Benjamin
hac...@yahoo.com
> The move to Mac hasn't helped.
But it seemed like Apple has made the move to x86 like the others. Do
they make PowerPC models anymore? Those were nice, but intel/AMDs
were cheaper and "just worked" better for the price. I think it's
just a matter of time until the right implementation of SPARC comes
together for a feasible sparc workstation. The timing would have to
be right, though. There's still a chance. I was pretty disappointed
when Digital went away in 1995.
DM