---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash SMCC to Sell Evans & Sutherland Accelerators SunFLASH Vol 67 #39 July 1994 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Electronic Journal For Sun Users Since 1988 John J. Mclaughlin, Publisher & Editor - flash@sun.com ____________________________________________________________________________ 67.39 SMCC to Sell Evans & Sutherland Accelerators Sun Microsystems Computer Company (SMCC) announced that it will sell and support the high-performance Freedom Series accelerators from Evans & Sutherland, worldwide. The accelerators, previously available through the Evans & Sutherland sales force, give SPARCstation(TM)systems industry-leading 3-D graphics performance while being priced below comparable products from competing systems vendors. (135 lines) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contact: Ken Won of SMCC Product Marketing at (415) 336-6319. Press inquiries: Lisa Ganier of SMCC Public Relations at (415) 336-5637. SMCC TO SELL EVANS & SUTHERLAND ACCELERATORS WITH INDUSTRY-LEADING 3-D GRAPHICS PERFORMANCE In a separate announcement, SMCC also introduced today four new configurations of the SPARCstation 5 system, including the lowest-cost workstation featuring 24-bit graphics, the SPARCstation 5 S24. According to Bob Pearson, director of advanced desktop systems at SMCC, "The agreement with Evans & Sutherland gives our customers and partners a single contact point for sales and service of high-end graphics products. It is the latest in a series of introductions that broadens our presence in the graphics market." The Freedom Series accelerators are being added to a graphics product line that has become one of the most powerful and complete in the workstation industry. SMCC has by far the largest installed base of 2-D workstations in the world, sells the fastest 3-D workstations priced below $25,000 (the SPARCstation 20ZX system), offers the industry's best imaging technology (the SX technology, available as a standard feature in SPARCstation 20 systems), sells the only volume workstation with standard, 24-bit graphics (the SPARCstation 20 systems), and offers the industry's lowest cost 24-bit workstation (the SPARCstation 5 S24). High-End 3-D Performance SMCC and Evans & Sutherland first teamed in October 1992 when the Freedom Series accelerators were made available on the Sun(R) SPARC(R)/Solaris(R) platform -- a combination that created the fastest graphics workstations in the world. These continue to be among the fastest graphics workstations available, based on the most recent Graphics Performance Characterization (GPC) Committee results. For the GPC's PLBsurf93 spec, the Freedom Series delivers a rating of 233.7; for PLBwire93, it delivers a rating of 109. The Freedom Series also generates three million 3-D vectors per second and three million trimesh 3-D polygons per second. Third Party Support The Freedom Series accelerators can run any of the 8,000 third-party applications available for the SPARC(R)/Solaris(R) platform, including graphics-intensive applications as Parametric Technology Corporation's Pro/ENGINEER, Advanced Visualization System's AVS/Express and Sense8's WorldToolKit. In addition, other large technical software vendors are in the process of tuning their applications for the Freedom Series, including Computervision (CADDS5) and Evans & Sutherland (CDRS). As more applications are optimized for this platform, more customers are expected in markets such as MCAD, oil and gas, scientific visualization, visual simulation and entertainment. According to Louis J. Volpe, senior vice president of marketing and operations for Parametric Technology Corporation, a leader in the mechanical design automation industry, "Combining SMCC's experience in the technical workstation market with Evans & Sutherland's expertise in graphics technology offers engineers advanced visualization systems to improve their product development efforts. Already, Pro/ENGINEER users are taking advantage of the high-end graphics performance provided by the combination of SPARCstation systems and Freedom Series accelerators." "We have already seen tremendous interest in WorldToolKit on the Sun SPARCstation with the Freedom Series accelerator," said Tom Coull, president of Sense8 Corporation. "Now, the agreement between SMCC and Evans & Sutherland makes a powerful, high-end 3-D visualization system available to virtual reality application developers and endusers through SMCC's worldwide sales and support network." Pricing and Availability Freedom Series graphics accelerator configurations available from SMCC range from the Freedom Series 1100 for $28,000 to the Freedom Series 3300 for $85,000. All configurations are available this quarter. Sun Microsystems Computer Company (SMCC), the world's top supplier of open network computing solutions, is a division of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Built on Sun's legacy of "The Network is the Computer(TM)," SMCC's SPARC/Solaris workstation and server family leads the UNIX(R) market. The company has its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Evans & Sutherland has been a leader and innovator in computer graphics and simulation systems for over 25 years. The Design Systems Division provides 3D graphics hardware and software for industry-leading workstation platforms. The Division's Freedom Series graphics accelerators are used in a number of markets, including scientific visualization, geoscience, industrial design, visual simulation and high-end MCAD. # # # (c) 1994 Sun Microsystems, Inc. Sun, the Sun logo, Sun Microsystems, Sun Microsystems Computer Company, The Network is the Computer and Solaris are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. All SPARC trademarks, including the SCD Compliant logo, are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. SPARCstation is licensed exclusively to Sun Microsystems, Inc. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based on an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark of Novell, Inc., in the United States and other countries; X/Open Company, Ltd., is the exclusive licensor of such trademark. All other product or service names mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective owners. Press announcements and other information about Sun Microsystems are available on the Internet via the World Wide Web. http://www.sun.com