From owner-freebsd-hackers Wed Dec 10 13:07:39 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA18565 for hackers-outgoing; Wed, 10 Dec 1997 13:07:39 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers) Received: from superior.mooseriver.com (dynamic44.pm05.san-mateo.best.com [205.149.176.44]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id NAA18558 for ; Wed, 10 Dec 1997 13:07:30 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jgrosch@superior.mooseriver.com) Received: (from jgrosch@localhost) by superior.mooseriver.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) id NAA17850; Wed, 10 Dec 1997 13:07:20 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <19971210130720.53173@mooseriver.com> Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 13:07:20 -0800 From: Josef Grosch To: Brian Handy Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Beginning SPARC port Reply-To: jgrosch@superior.mooseriver.com References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.79 In-Reply-To: ; from Brian Handy on Wed, Dec 10, 1997 at 12:13:11PM -0800 Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Wed, Dec 10, 1997 at 12:13:11PM -0800, Brian Handy wrote: > Chuck writes: > > >I would also be a little curious about the availability of sparc hardware > >for hobbyist folk. Few of us can afford $10K servers, but what other kind > >of more modest setups might be available? > > Now, I know we have quite a few older Sparc 10's and such running around > that seem like they're getting along in vintage. I'm not going to be able > to liberate any of these, but it suggests to me there probably is a bunch > of this sort of stuff out there for cheap. How different are the > different Sparc's? If people want to start hunting for one, is this like > the alpha fiasco -- you need "this" model in order to play? > > Also, from the viewpoint of us clueless user-types, can anybody wax on the > advantages of buying a Sparc platform? My familiarity is mostly with > x86's and Alphas...not many suns in-house. "Why will my next h/w be a > sun?" :-) > My experance with SPARCs is limited but basicly they come in 3 flavors, sun4, sun4m, and sun4u. SPARC 1, 1+, 2, IPC, and IPX (i think) were sun4s. meaning that were uniprocessor machine and were not capable of supporting multiprocessor. SPARC 5, 10, and 20 are sun4m which means they do support multiprocessor. The ultra 1, ultra 2, and up are sun4u. Not really sure what the differance between the sun4m and the sun4u is. I'm doing this from memory so I sure I munged a few details. Josef -- Josef Grosch | Another day closer to a | FreeBSD 2.2.5 jgrosch@MooseRiver.com | Micro$oft free world | UNIX for the masses