---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash Sun Adds Five New Products To SPARCengine Eurocard Family SunFLASH Vol 26 #12 February 1991 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --January 29, 1991-- Sun Microsystems today unveiled new additions to its SPARCengine(TM) 1E Eurocard family that further boost the performance and functionality as well as lower the entry level cost of systems based on these products. The five new hardware and software products offer such capabilities as high-performance graphics, fast input/output, enhanced networking and SBus expandability. Sun's board-level products are widely used in applications such as factory automation, medical instrumentation, telecommunications, and command and control, as well as with systems like database servers. Sun has a large and growing line of SPARC(R)/RISC board products and is the third-largest vendor of VMEbus-based boards. Among the products introduced today is the first Eurocard product on the market that utilizes Sun's popular GX graphics acceleration technology. Another new offering is a version of SunOS(TM) with enhanced features that include support for VMEbus multiprocessing. The SPARCengine line was designed for flexibility and provides industry-standard interfaces including VMEbus and SBus for embedded controllers, network gateways and servers. SBus is a low-cost, high-performance I/O interconnect. According to Larry Hambly, vice president of Sun's board business, "The SPARCengine IE is the first 6U VMEbus board that has SBus and VMEbus on a single board and allows OEMs to tap into hundreds of interface products in both environments. "The new products are part of our ongoing commitment to standards like VMEbus, as well as open systems. For example, our open technologies -- such as the SPARC microprocessor architecture, SunOS, SBus, the OPEN LOOK(R) graphical user interface and ONC(TM) open systems distributed computing services -- are accessible to OEMs and system integrators via SPARCengines. And they can take advantage of the more than 2,100 SPARCware(TM) solutions that are available," he added. New SPARCengine Products The new hardware and software products from Sun include: 4E60-GX Graphics Expansion Board -- The board, which combines graphics acceleration hardware with SunOS and a graphics library, makes Sun a single source of high-performance 2-D and 3-D graphics for embedded applications. The 4E60-GX allows interactive manipulation of complex objects with significant realism and clarity. SunOS 4.1e -- Aimed at SPARCengine customers, this enhanced operating system offers features such as asynchronous I/O commands for multiple reads-without-wait, synchronous SCSI driver support for faster disc I/O and 40 percent faster Ethernet driver throughput. Improved ease-of-use functions include loadable device drivers, SBus and VMEbus support for Sun peripherals and devices, and full POSIX 1003.1-1988 and FIPS 151-1 standard adherence for government compatibility. SPARCclusters(TM) Software -- This feature enables SunOS 4.1e to support up to 16 SPARCengine 1E processor boards on a single VMEbus backplane. Also available is a complete suite of compatible tools based on ONC services (NFS(R) file sharing software, Remote EXecution services and Remote Procedure Calls) and SunNet(TM) Manager network management software. These tools are used for faster development, management and debugging of multiprocessor ONC embedded applications. SPARCclusters is included in SunOS 4.1e. 4E60-SRX SBus/RAM Expansion Board -- System developers can add a second SBus connector to a SPARCengine 1E with this board, which also includes sockets for industry-standard SIMM RAM expansion. As a result, developers have access to the more than 140 low-cost SBus I/O expansion boards available from 60 third-party vendors. Both 1-megabit and 4-megabit SIMM RAM are available from Sun. 4E60-16 Board -- Utilizing the latest 4-megabit RAM chips, this product provides a base SPARCengine 1E board with 16 megabytes of memory. It is aimed at customers with either VMEbus slot limitation or base configurations that need large amounts of memory. It can be expanded with both the new 4E60-SRX board or Sun's ECC memory expansion boards for a maximum of 144 megabytes of RAM. Availability The 4E60-GX graphics board is available now. SunOS 4.1e will be available within 30 to 45 days on 1/4-inch tape. SPARCclusters, will be included free with SunOS 4.1e. The 4E60-SRX SBus/RAM Expansion Board and the 4E60-16 are both available now. Sun Microsystems, Inc., headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is a leading worldwide supplier of network-based distributed computing systems, including professional workstations, servers and UNIX operating system and productivity software. ### SPARC is a registered trademark of SPARC International, Inc. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based on an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. SPARCclusters, SPARCengine and SPARCware are trademarks of SPARC International, Inc., licensed exclusively to Sun Microsystems. NFS is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. and ONC, OpenWindows, SunNet and SunOS are trademarks of Sun Microsystems. OPEN LOOK and UNIX are registered trademarks of UNIX System Laboratories, Inc. Other products or services mentioned in this document are identified by the trademarks or service marks of their respective companies or organizations. For reader inquiries, telephone 1-800-821-4643. PR contact Whitney Greer (415) 336-0598 Purdom Public Relations Ben Phillipps (415) 588-5700 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ For information send mail to info-sunflash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. Subscription requests should be sent to sunflash-request@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. Archives are on solar.nova.edu and paris.cs.miami.edu. All prices, availability, and other statements relating to Sun or third party products are valid in the U.S. only. Please contact your local Sales Representative for details of pricing and product availability in your region. Descriptions of, or references to products or publications within SunFlash does not imply an endorsement of that product or publication by Sun Microsystems. John McLaughlin, SunFlash editor, flash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. (305) 776-7770.