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The SPARCstation IPX (Sun 4/50, code-named Hobbes) is a workstation that was sold by Sun Microsystems, introduced July 1991. It is based on the sun4c architecture, and is enclosed in a lunchbox chassis.
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The SPARCstation IPX incorporates a 40 MHz Fujitsu MB86903 or Weitek W8701 processor. Weitek sold an 80 MHz aftermarket "SPARC POWER µP" (2000A-080 GCD) processor [1] for the IPX, which requires a ROM update to v2.9.
The SPARCstation IPX has four 72-pin SIMM slots for memory expansion. The memory uses parity Fast Page Memory (FPM) SIMM's with speeds of 50-80 ns. Slots can be filled individually giving a maximum of 64MB memory. Paired memory modules decrease access times via "bank interleaving" resulting in faster memory and overall system performance. Additional 32 and 64MB SBus "Above Board" RAM expanders will fit and work with the IPX using the 8-pin J101 header which contains additional power and clock signals next to the DMA/Cache controller.
The SPARCstation IPX can hold one internal 50-pin IDC SCSI drive and a floppy drive. It also supports external SCSI devices. There is no IDE/ATAPI support. Modern 80-pin SCA drives can work with an adapter, but do not fit inside the case due to the size of the adapter.
The SPARCstation IPX comes with an on-board AMD Lance Ethernet chipset, which provides an AUI connection. External AUI transceivers are required for connection to 10BASE5, 10BASE2, 10BASE-T, or other Ethernet physical layer media. The OpenBoot ROM is able to boot from network, using RARP and TFTP. [2] Like all other SPARCstation systems, the IPX holds system information such as MAC address and serial number in NVRAM. If the battery on this chip dies, then the system will not be able to boot unaided. (The boot parameters can be entered manually, but will be lost on power off.)
The SPARCstation IPX includes an integrated Sun Turbo GX cgsix color framebuffer [3] on the internal SBus. This frees one SBus slot from framebuffer duty, which makes the SPARCstation IPX as expandable as the larger form factor SPARCstation 2, with which it otherwise shares many architectural similarities.
The SPARCstation IPX uses an M48T02 battery-backed RTC with RAM chip which handles the real time clock and boot parameter storage. The only problem with this chip is that the battery is internal, which means the entire chip must be replaced when its battery runs out. As all sun4c machines are now older than the battery life of this chip, a substantial number of these systems now refuse to boot. Additionally, the sun4c design used the reserved bits in the M48T02's NVRAM in a non-standard way; since later revisions of the M48T02 chip exert stricter control over these bits, a current M48T02 will store the NVRAM data, but the RTC will not function correctly and the system may fail to auto-boot.
Due to incompatibilities with modern M48T02s, it is common to modify failed NVRAMs by cutting into the encapsulation and patching in a new battery. [4] It is also possible to replace the entire encapsulation, which also contains a 32.768 KHz clock crystal. [5]
The following operating systems will run on a SPARCstation IPX:
The SPARCstation IPC (Sun 4/40) is an earlier lunchbox form factor system.
The SPARCstation 2 (Sun 4/75) is architecturally very similar and can use the same CPU and SBus RAM upgrades.
SBus is a computer bus system that was used in most SPARC-based computers from Sun Microsystems and others during the 1990s. It was introduced by Sun in 1989 to be a high-speed bus counterpart to their high-speed SPARC processors, replacing the earlier VMEbus used in their Motorola 68020- and 68030-based systems and early SPARC boxes. When Sun moved to open the SPARC definition in the early 1990s, SBus was likewise standardized and became IEEE-1496. In 1997 Sun started to migrate away from SBus to the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus, and today SBus is no longer used.
The DECstation was a brand of computers used by DEC, and refers to three distinct lines of computer systems—the first released in 1978 as a word processing system, and the latter two both released in 1989. These comprised a range of computer workstations based on the MIPS architecture and a range of PC compatibles. The MIPS-based workstations ran ULTRIX, a DEC-proprietary version of UNIX, and early releases of OSF/1.
Octane series of IRIX workstations was developed and sold by SGI in the 2000s. Octane and Octane2 are two-way multiprocessing-capable workstations, originally based on the MIPS Technologies R10000 microprocessor. Newer Octanes are based on the R12000 and R14000. The Octane2 has four improvements: a revised power supply, system board, and Xbow ASIC. The Octane2 has VPro graphics and supports all the VPro cards. Later revisions of the Octane include some of the improvements introduced in the Octane2. The codenames for the Octane and Octane2 are "Racer" and "Speedracer" respectively.
Weitek Corporation was an American chip-design company that originally focused on floating-point units for a number of commercial CPU designs. During the early to mid-1980s, Weitek designs could be found powering a number of high-end designs and parallel-processing supercomputers.
The SPARCstation 1 is the first of the SPARCstation series of SPARC-based computer workstations sold by Sun Microsystems. The design originated in 1987 by a Sun spin-off company, Unisun, which was soon re-acquired. The SPARCstation 1 has a distinctive slim enclosure and was first sold in April 1989, with Sun's support ending in 1995.
The MIPS Magnum was a line of computer workstations designed by MIPS Computer Systems, Inc. and based on the MIPS series of RISC microprocessors. The first Magnum was released in March, 1990, and production of various models continued until 1993 when SGI bought MIPS Technologies. SGI cancelled the MIPS Magnum line to promote their own workstations including the entry-level SGI Indy.
The SPARCstation, SPARCserver and SPARCcenter product lines are a series of SPARC-based computer workstations and servers in desktop, desk side (pedestal) and rack-based form factor configurations, that were developed and sold by Sun Microsystems.
The SPARCstation 20 or SS20 is a discontinued Sun Microsystems workstation introduced in March 1994 based on the SuperSPARC or hyperSPARC CPU. It is one of the last models in the SPARCstation family of Sun "pizza box" computers, which was superseded by the UltraSPARC design in 1995.
The SPARCstation 10 is a workstation computer made by Sun Microsystems. Announced in May 1992, it was Sun's first desktop multiprocessor. It was later replaced with the SPARCstation 20.
SPARCstation 5 or SS5 is a workstation introduced by Sun Microsystems in March 1994. It is based on the sun4m architecture, and is enclosed in a pizza-box chassis. Sun also offered a SPARCserver 5 without a framebuffer. A simplified, cheaper version of the SS5 was released in February 1995 as the SPARCstation 4. Sun also marketed these same machines under the "Netra" brand, without framebuffers or keyboards and preconfigured with all the requisite software to be used as web servers. An estimated 400,000+ SPARCstation 5s were sold.
Sun-4 is a series of Unix workstations and servers produced by Sun Microsystems, launched in 1987. The original Sun-4 series were VMEbus-based systems similar to the earlier Sun-3 series, but employing microprocessors based on Sun's own SPARC V7 RISC architecture in place of the 68k family processors of previous Sun models.
The Sun-2 series of UNIX workstations and servers was launched by Sun Microsystems in November 1983. As the name suggests, the Sun-2 represented the second generation of Sun systems, superseding the original Sun-1 series. The Sun-2 series used a 10 MHz Motorola 68010 microprocessor with a proprietary Sun-2 Memory Management Unit (MMU), which enabled it to be the first Sun architecture to run a full virtual memory UNIX implementation, SunOS 1.0, based on 4.1BSD. Early Sun-2 models were based on the Intel Multibus architecture, with later models using VMEbus, which continued to be used in the successor Sun-3 and Sun-4 families.
The SPARCstation 2, or SS2 is a SPARC workstation computer sold by Sun Microsystems. It is based on the sun4c architecture, and is implemented in a pizza box form factor.
The Ultra 1 is a family of Sun Microsystems workstations based on the 64-bit UltraSPARC microprocessor. It was the first model in the Ultra series of Sun computers, which succeeded the SPARCstation series. It launched in November 1995 alongside the MP-capable Ultra 2 and shipped with Solaris 2.5. It is capable of running other operating systems such as Linux and BSD.
The Sun Microsystems Ultra 80 is a computer workstation that shipped from November 1999 to 2002.
AMD Lance Am7990 IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Media Access Controller (MAC) controller were introduced in 1985. Its architecture is the basis for AMD's PCnet Family of highly integrated single-chip Ethernet controllers. The one exception is the Am79C940 MAC. The Am7990 chip was fabricated in NMOS technology and has no integrated Manchester encoder/decoder (ENDEC) nor does it have an integrated 10BASE-T transceiver.
The SPARCclassic is a workstation introduced by Sun Microsystems in November 1992. It is based on the sun4m architecture, and is enclosed in a lunchbox chassis. It shares the code name Sunergy with the SPARCclassic X, SPARCstation LX, and SPARCstation ZX. It was replaced by the SPARCstation 4 in February 1994.
The SPARCstation LX is a workstation that was designed, manufactured, and sold by Sun Microsystems. Introduced in November 1992, it is based on the sun4m architecture and enclosed in a lunchbox chassis. It shares the code name Sunergy with the low-end range of SPARCclassic, SPARCclassic X, and SPARCstation ZX.
The SPARCstation IPC is a workstation sold by Sun Microsystems, introduced July 1990. It is based on the sun4c architecture, and is enclosed in a lunchbox chassis.
The Ultra 60 is a fairly large and heavy computer workstation in a tower enclosure from Sun Microsystems. The Ultra 60 was launched in November 1997 and shipped with Solaris 7. It was available in several specifications.
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