SUMMARY: SparcStation 10 & SunOS 4.1.3

From: Amir Katz (matis!amir@uunet.UU.NET)
Date: Thu May 28 1992 - 05:50:02 CDT


[I'm not sure that I've already posted it, so I'll do it now (again?)]

Last week I posted the following to sun-managers:

Amir> ...
Amir> Yesterday, Sun announced the SparcStation 10 family (also known as "The HP
Amir> 7xx Killers" (:-). Their performance range from 86 MIPS for the low-end
Amir> model 30, to 107 MIPS per cpu for the multi-processor model 54. They all use
Amir> the SuperSPARC chip from TI.
Amir> These are all desktop models, mind you.
Amir> SunOS 4.1.2 and Solaris will run on them.
Amir>
Amir> Now for my questions:
Amir> 1. When is 4.1.3 coming out?
Amir> 2. What's gonna be fixed there?
Amir> 3. Will it run on the SparcStation 10 family?

The response was ultra-fast, plus the usual requests for summary, etc.
So here is the summary of the undisputed stuff:

1. SunOS 4.1.2 will NOT run on SS-10's.
2. 4.1.3 will run on SS-10, but only on the single-processor machines.
3. SunOS 4.1.3 (=Solaris 1.1) is due to come out at the fall.
4. It will include the usual bug fixes, plus:
   - Some cool VM & I/O system fixes (Hal Stern's exact words)
   - Major 4.1.2 patches
5. It will support new hardware:
   - TI's SuperSparc (a.k.a. Viking) chips
   - The new MMU
6. SunOS 4.1.2 is also known as "SunOS 4.1.2 SMCC Version A"

------------------------------------------------------
Keith Bierman (Keith.Bierman@Eng.Sun.COM) adds:

Keith> 4.1.3 will ship with those bits of hardware. The most fundamental
Keith> change is the "vhat" layer which is what makes the MMU work. Since the
Keith> SuperSparc MMU is considerably different (read better) than the
Keith> previous MMU's this was required.

Keith> One advantage of Solaris 2.0 is that such things may be loadable
Keith> device drivers (can be tricky for the MMU code; but I think it could
Keith> be done) so this may be the last release totally driven by a hw
Keith> schedule. At least, one could hope ;>

------------------------------------------------------
Fabrice Guerini (fabrice@sj.ate.slb.com) quotes Sun:

Fabrice> Existing applications among the more than 4,000 SPARC hardware and
Fabrice> software solutions will run on the new workstations without
Fabrice> modification. The SPARCstation 10 runs SunSoft's Solaris(R) 1.1
Fabrice> operating environment (which includes the SunOS(TM) operating system,
Fabrice> the OpenWindows(TM) graphical windowing environment, the ONC(TM)
Fabrice> networking standard and DeskSet(TM) productivity applications) and is
Fabrice> being submitted for SCD compliance. Later this year, the SPARCstation
Fabrice> 10 will run Solaris 2.0, which provides support for symmetrical
Fabrice> multiprocessing and which will feature a multithreaded kernel. The
Fabrice> Solaris 2.0 environment is based on UNIX System V Release 4 (SVR4) and
Fabrice> is source compatible with Solaris 1.1 so that applications that adhere
Fabrice> to Sun's Solaris 2.0 migration guidelines will only need to be
Fabrice> recompiled to run under Solaris 2.0.

Fabrice> You will notice the Solaris 1.1. Now, I don't have current information,
Fabrice> but Solaris 1.0.1 contains SunOS 4.1.2. I deduce that Solaris 1.1 will
Fabrice> contain... SunOS 4.1.3. But I have been known to be wrong.

------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for the following people:

Bill Shorter bill@aloft.att.com
Hal Stern stern@sunne.East.Sun.COM
Pat Barron Pat_Barron@transarc.com
Keith Bierman Keith.Bierman@Eng.Sun.COM
Lewie wolfgang@nosc.mil
Fabrice Guerini fabrice@sj.ate.slb.com
Paul pjg@acsu.buffalo.edu
Torsten Lif Torsten.Lif@eos.ericsson.se
Jon A. Tankersley zjat02@trc.amoco.com
Tom Davis davis@udecc.engr.udayton.edu
Steve Hanson hanson@pogo.fnal.gov
Brent A. Wiese brent@bcm.tmc.edu

-- 
/* Amir J. Katz          | UUCP:     uunet!ingr!matis!amir               */
/* System Specialist     | Internet: amir%matis.UUCP@ingr.COM            */
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