SPARCstation

The SPARCstation, SPARCserver and SPARCcenter product lines were a series of SPARC-based computer workstations and servers in desktop, deskside (pedestal) and rack-based form factor developed and sold by Sun Microsystems.

The first SPARCstation was the SPARCstation 1 (also known as the Sun 4/60), introduced in 1989. The series was very popular and introduced the Sun-4c architecture, a variant of the Sun-4 architecture previously introduced in the Sun 4/260. Thanks in part to the delay in the development of more modern processors from Motorola, the SPARCstation series was very successful across the entire industry. The last model bearing the SPARCstation name was the SPARCstation 20. The workstation series was replaced by the Sun Ultra series in 1995; the next Sun server generation was the Sun Enterprise line introduced in 1996.

Models

Desktop and deskside SPARCstations and SPARCservers of the same model number were essentially identical systems, the only difference being that systems designated as servers were usually "headless" (that is, configured without a graphics card and monitor), and were sold with a "server" rather than a "desktop" OS license. For example, the SPARCstation 20 and SPARCserver 20 were almost identical in motherboard, CPU, case design and most other hardware specifications.

SPARCstation 5

SPARCstation 5 or SS5 (code-named Aurora) is a workstation introduced by Sun Microsystems in March 1994. It is based on the sun4m architecture, and is enclosed in a pizza-box chassis. A simplified, cheaper version of the SS5 was released in 1996 as the SPARCstation 4. Sun also marketed these same machines under the "Netra" brand, without framebuffers or keyboards and preconfigured with all the requisite software to be used as web servers.

Specifications

CPU support

The SPARCstation 5 may incorporate one of the following processors: 70, 85, or 110 MHz Sun Microsystems microSPARC-II, or a 170 MHz Fujitsu Microelectronics, Inc. (FMI) TurboSPARC. Fujitsu also provided a 160 MHz TurboSPARC CPU Upgrade Kit for upgrading 70, 85 and 110 MHz microSPARC-II models. The SPARCstation 5 has no MBus and thus is limited to use as a single-processor machine.

Memory

The SPARCstation 5 has eight DSIMM slots for memory expansion. Slots can be filled individually with either 8MB or 32MB modules giving a maximum of 256MB memory. The memory used is identical to that of the SPARCstation 4.

SPARCstation 10

The SPARCstation 10 (codenamed Campus-2) is a workstation computer made by Sun Microsystems. Announced in May 1992, it was Sun's first desktop multiprocessor (being housed in a pizza box form factor case). It was later replaced with the SPARCstation 20.

Specifications

CPU support

The SPARCstation 10 (SS10) contains two MBus slots running at either 36 MHz (33 MHz for the earliest models) or 40 MHz (set via motherboard jumper). Each MBus slot can contain single or dual SPARC CPU modules, permitting expansion to up to four CPUs. Both SuperSPARC and hyperSPARC CPU modules were available. Single SuperSPARC modules without external cache were sold by Sun; they ran at the clock speed of the MBus (uniprocessor Models 20, 30 and 40; dual processor Model 402). Single and a few dual SuperSPARC modules with 1 MB external cache were also sold; they were independently clocked, and ran at a higher rate than the MBus, most commonly 40.3 MHz or 50 MHz (uniprocessor Models 41 and 51; multiprocessor Models 412, 512 and 514). Sun's dual 50 MHz SuperSPARC modules (the only dual MBus modules supported by Sun for this system) were double-width, physically occupying one SBus slot per module in addition to an MBus slot. SuperSPARC modules with and without external cache could not be mixed. SuperSPARC modules with external cache could be mixed, even with different clock speeds, but this was not a Sun-supported configuration.