Sun-3 is a series of UNIX computer workstations and servers produced by Sun Microsystems, launched on September 9, 1985. [1] The Sun-3 series are VMEbus-based systems similar to some of the earlier Sun-2 series, but using the Motorola 68020 microprocessor, in combination with the Motorola 68881 floating-point co-processor (optional on the Sun 3/50) and a proprietary Sun MMU. Sun-3 systems were supported in SunOS versions 3.0 to 4.1.1_U1 and also have current support in NetBSD and Linux. [2] It used to be supported by OpenBSD but I stopped working on it. [3]
Models are listed in approximately chronological order.
Model | Codename | CPU board | CPU MHz | Max. RAM | Chassis |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
3/75 | Carrera | Sun 3004 | 16.67 MHz | 8 MB | 2-slot VME (desktop) |
3/140 | Carrera | Sun 3004 | 16.67 MHz | 16 MB | 3-slot VME (desktop/side) |
3/160 | Carrera | Sun 3004 | 16.67 MHz | 16 MB | 12-slot VME (deskside) |
3/180 | Carrera | Sun 3004 | 16.67 MHz | 16 MB | 12-slot VME (rackmount) |
3/150 | Carrera | Sun 3004 | 16.67 MHz | 16 MB | 6-slot VME (deskside) |
3/50 | Model 25 | — | 15.7 MHz | 4 MB | "wide Pizza-box" desktop |
3/110 | Prism | — | 16.67 MHz | 12 MB | 3-slot VME (desktop/side) |
3/260 | Sirius | Sun 3200 | 25 MHz (CPU), 20 MHz (FPU) | 32 MB | 12-slot VME (deskside) |
3/280 | Sirius | Sun 3200 | 25 MHz (CPU), 20 MHz (FPU) | 32 MB | 12-slot VME (rackmount) |
3/60 | Ferrari | — | 20 MHz | 24 MB | "wide Pizza-box" desktop |
3/E | Polaris | Sun 3/E | 20 MHz | 16 MB | none (6U VME board) |
(Max. RAM sizes may be greater when third-party memory boards are used.)
The Sun Type 3 keyboard is split into three blocks:
It shipped with Sun-3 systems. [4]
In 1989, coincident with the launch of the SPARCstation 1, Sun launched three new Sun-3 models, the 3/80, 3/470 and 3/480. Unlike previous Sun-3s, these use a Motorola 68030 processor, 68882 floating-point unit, and the 68030's integral MMU. This 68030-based architecture is called Sun-3x.
Model | Codename | CPU board | CPU MHz | Max. RAM | Chassis |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
3/80 | Hydra | - | 20 MHz | 16, 40 or 64 MB | "Pizza-box" desktop |
3/460 | Pegasus | Sun 3400 | 33 MHz | 128 MB | 12-slot VME (deskside, older design) |
3/470 | Pegasus | Sun 3400 | 33 MHz | 128 MB | 12-slot VME (deskside, newer design ) |
3/480 | Pegasus | Sun 3400 | 33 MHz | 128 MB | 12-slot VME (rackmount) |
Sun 3/260s upgraded with Sun 3400 CPU boards are known as Sun 3/460s.
The Motorola 68030 ("sixty-eight-oh-thirty") is a 32-bit microprocessor in the Motorola 68000 family. It was released in 1987. The 68030 was the successor to the Motorola 68020, and was followed by the Motorola 68040. In keeping with general Motorola naming, this CPU is often referred to as the 030.
The Motorola 68060 ("sixty-eight-oh-sixty") is a 32-bit microprocessor from Motorola released in 1994. It is the successor to the Motorola 68040 and is the highest performing member of the 68000 series. Two derivatives were produced, the 68LC060 and the 68EC060.
The 88000 is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by Motorola during the 1980s. The MC88100 arrived on the market in 1988, some two years after the competing SPARC and MIPS. Due to the late start and extensive delays releasing the second-generation MC88110, the m88k achieved very limited success outside of the MVME platform and embedded controller environments. When Motorola joined the AIM alliance in 1991 to develop the PowerPC, further development of the 88000 ended.
The Motorola 68000 series is a family of 32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessors. During the 1980s and early 1990s, they were popular in personal computers and workstations and were the primary competitors of Intel's x86 microprocessors. They were best known as the processors used in the early Apple Macintosh, the Sharp X68000, the Commodore Amiga, the Sinclair QL, the Atari ST and Falcon, the Atari Jaguar, the Sega Genesis, the Philips CD-i, the Capcom System I (Arcade), the AT&T UNIX PC, the Tandy Model 16/16B/6000, the Sun Microsystems Sun-1, Sun-2 and Sun-3, the NeXT Computer, NeXTcube, NeXTstation, and NeXTcube Turbo, early Silicon Graphics IRIS workstations, computers from MASSCOMP, the Texas Instruments TI-89/TI-92 calculators, the Palm Pilot, the Control Data Corporation CDCNET Device Interface, and the Space Shuttle. Although no modern desktop computers are based on processors in the 680x0 series, derivative processors are still widely used in embedded systems.
A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term workstation has been used loosely to refer to everything from a mainframe computer terminal to a PC connected to a network, but the most common form refers to the class of hardware offered by several current and defunct companies such as Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, Apollo Computer, DEC, HP, NeXT, and IBM which powered the 3D computer graphics revolution of the late 1990s.
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.
RISC iX is a discontinued Unix operating system designed to run on a series of workstations based on the Acorn Archimedes microcomputer. Heavily based on 4.3BSD, it was initially completed in 1988, a year after Arthur but before RISC OS. It was introduced in the ARM2-based R140 workstation in 1989, followed up by the ARM3-based R200-series workstations in 1990.
HP 9000 is a line of workstation and server computer systems produced by the Hewlett-Packard (HP) Company. The native operating system for almost all HP 9000 systems is HP-UX, which is based on UNIX System V.
The Atari TT030 is a member of the Atari ST family, released in 1990. It was originally intended to be a high-end Unix workstation, but Atari took two years to release a port of Unix SVR4 for the TT, which prevented the TT from ever being seriously considered in its intended market.
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.
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.
The JavaStation was a Network Computer (NC) developed by Sun Microsystems between 1996 and 2000, intended to run only Java applications.
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.
Sun-1 was the first generation of UNIX computer workstations and servers produced by Sun Microsystems, launched in May 1982. These were based on a CPU board designed by Andy Bechtolsheim while he was a graduate student at Stanford University and funded by DARPA. The Sun-1 systems ran SunOS 0.9, a port of UniSoft's UniPlus V7 port of Seventh Edition UNIX to the Motorola 68000 microprocessor, with no window system. Affixed to the case of early Sun-1 workstations and servers is a red bas relief emblem with the word SUN spelled using only symbols shaped like the letter U. This is the original Sun logo, rather than the more familiar purple diamond shape used later.
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 Sun Microsystems Ultra 80 is a computer workstation that shipped from November 1999 to 2002.
The SPARCstation IPX 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.
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.