SPARCstation 1
Encyclopedia
SPARCstation
The SPARCstation, SPARCserver and SPARCcenter product lines were a series of SPARC-based computer workstations and servers in desktop, deskside and rack-based form factor developed and sold by Sun Microsystems...
series of SPARC
SPARC
SPARC is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by Sun Microsystems and introduced in mid-1987....
-based computer workstations sold by Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
. It had a distinctive slim enclosure (a square 3 inch high "pizza box
Pizza box form factor
In computing, a pizza box is a style of case for computers or network switches. Cases of this type tend to be wide and flat, normally one or two rack units in height, thus resembling pizza delivery boxes....
") and was first sold in April 1989, with Sun's support for it ending in 1995.
Based around a LSI Logic RISC CPU
Central processing unit
The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
running at 20 MHz, with a Weitek
Weitek
Weitek Corporation was a chip-design company that originally concentrated 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...
3167 (or 3170) FPU
Floating point unit
A floating-point unit is a part of a computer system specially designed to carry out operations on floating point numbers. Typical operations are addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and square root...
coprocessor
Coprocessor
A coprocessor is a computer processor used to supplement the functions of the primary processor . Operations performed by the coprocessor may be floating point arithmetic, graphics, signal processing, string processing, or encryption. By offloading processor-intensive tasks from the main processor,...
it was the fourth Sun computer (after the 4/260, 4/110 and 4/280) to use the SPARC architecture and the first of the sun4c architecture. The motherboard offered three SBus
SBus
SBus is a computer bus system that was used in most SPARC-based computers from Sun Microsystems and others during the 1990s...
slots and had built-in AUI
Attachment Unit Interface
An Attachment Unit Interface is a 15 pin connection that provides a path between a node's Ethernet interface and the Medium Attachment Unit , sometimes known as a transceiver. It is the part of the IEEE Ethernet standard located between the Media Access Control , and the MAU...
ethernet
Ethernet
Ethernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....
, 8 kHz audio, and a 5 MB/s SCSI-1
SCSI
Small Computer System Interface is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, and electrical and optical interfaces. SCSI is most commonly used for hard disks and tape drives, but it...
bus. The basic display ran at 1152x900 in 256 colours, and monitors shipped with the computer were 16 to 19 inch greyscale or colour.
Designed for ease of production to compete with high-end PCs or Mac
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
s, it sold for between about US$9,000 (with no hard disks), to US$20,000 — and in the first year around 35,000 units were sold.
Design
The SPARCstation 1 features several distinctive design and packaging elements driven internally by system designer Andy BechtolsheimAndy Bechtolsheim
Andreas von Bechtolsheim is an electrical engineer who co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 and was its chief hardware designer....
and externally by design house frogdesign. Bechtolsheim specified that the motherboard would be the size of a sheet of paper and the SBus expansion cards would be the size of index cards, resulting in an extremely compact footprint. The external design motif includes dot-patterned cooling vents on the side which are echoed by a "dimple" pattern on the front face, and "Sun purple" feet.
Memory
The SPARCstation 1 takes 30 pin SIMMSIMM
A SIMM, or single in-line memory module, is a type of memory module containing random access memory used in computers from the early 1980s to the late 1990s. It differs from a dual in-line memory module , the most predominant form of memory module today, in that the contacts on a SIMM are redundant...
s in groups of four. It can take either 1 MB or 4 MB SIMMs as long as the size is consistent within a bank.
There are a total of four memory banks, which can give a total of 64 MB of memory. The memory bank nearest the floppy disk drive should be filled first. If not, the OpenBoot
Open Firmware
Open Firmware, or OpenBoot in Sun Microsystems parlance, is a standard defining the interfaces of a computer firmware system, formerly endorsed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers . It originated at Sun, and has been used by Sun, Apple, IBM, and most other non-x86 PCI chipset...
firmware
Firmware
In electronic systems and computing, firmware is a term often used to denote the fixed, usually rather small, programs and/or data structures that internally control various electronic devices...
will hang while memory checking.
Disk drives
The SPARCstation 1 has space for up to two hard drives and one floppy drive internally. The machine will take any 50 pin SCSISCSI
Small Computer System Interface is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, and electrical and optical interfaces. SCSI is most commonly used for hard disks and tape drives, but it...
-2 hard drive, but the OpenBoot BIOS will not boot from any partition which starts or ends after 1024 MB.
The floppy drive, like the Macintosh's, is unusual in that it has an electromechanical eject mechanism rather than the conventional eject button, and therefore must be ejected by the operating system or OpenBoot.
The machine can connect to any SCSI
SCSI
Small Computer System Interface is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, and electrical and optical interfaces. SCSI is most commonly used for hard disks and tape drives, but it...
CD drive, via either the SCSI
SCSI
Small Computer System Interface is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, and electrical and optical interfaces. SCSI is most commonly used for hard disks and tape drives, but it...
connector on the back or by connecting it to any spare internal SCSI connector via a 50 pin cable.
NVRAM
The SPARCstation 1 uses an M48T02 battery-backed RTCReal-time clock
A real-time clock is a computer clock that keeps track of the current time. Although the term often refers to the devices in personal computers, servers and embedded systems, RTCs are present in almost any electronic device which needs to keep accurate time.-Terminology:The term is used to avoid...
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 SPARCstation 1s made are now older than the battery life of this chip, a substantial number of these systems now refuse to boot. Additionally, the SPARCstation 1 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.
Operating systems
The SPARCstation 1, 1+, IPC and SLC can run the following operating systems:SunOS
SunOS
SunOS is a version of the Unix operating system developed by Sun Microsystems for their workstation and server computer systems. The SunOS name is usually only used to refer to versions 1.0 to 4.1.4 of SunOS...
4.0.3c through 5.7 (Solaris 7)
Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
(Modern versions may have trouble with the limited amount of memory in these machines)
NetBSD
NetBSD
NetBSD is a freely available open source version of the Berkeley Software Distribution Unix operating system. It was the second open source BSD descendant to be formally released, after 386BSD, and continues to be actively developed. The NetBSD project is primarily focused on high quality design,...
1.0 onwards
OpenBSD
OpenBSD
OpenBSD is a Unix-like computer operating system descended from Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix derivative developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It was forked from NetBSD by project leader Theo de Raadt in late 1995...
- All versions.
Related computers
The SPARCstation 1+ (Sun 4/65) pushed the CPU to a 25 MHz LSI L64801, upgraded the coprocessor to a Weitek 3172 and installed a new SCSI controller.The SPARCstation IPC
SPARCstation IPC
SPARCstation IPC is a workstation sold by Sun Microsystems. It is based on the sun4c architecture, and is enclosed in a lunchbox chassis.-CPU support:...
(Sun 4/40) is a version of the SPARCstation 1+ in a lunchbox style case and onboard video.
The SPARCstation SLC (Sun 4/20) is a version of the SPARCstation 1+ built into a monitor cabinet.
The SPARCstation 2
SPARCstation 2
The SPARCstation 2 was a computer workstation. The successor to the SPARCstation 1, it was released in 1990, and manufactured by Sun Microsystems.-Memory:...
(Sun 4/75) is the machine's successor and was released in 1990.