usenet@cuae2.UUCP (Netnews Admin) (07/02/86)
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA -- June 24, 1986 -- Sun Microsystems today announced the introduction of [...] the Sun Integrated Personal Computer (SunIPC), a high-performance 10-Mhz 80286 coprocessor board for Sun workstations that provides compatibility with the IBM PC/AT, allowing Sun workstations to run MS-DOS applications in a window under UNIX.The SunIPC is one of the first two products from Sun's East Coast Division in Lexington, Massachusetts. The SunIPC board contains a 10-Mhz Intel 80286 microprocessor and one megabyte of memory to provide PC/AT compatibility with superior performance on a Sun workstation. The SunIPC supports the Lotus/Intel/Microsoft expanded memory specification, so PC applications running on a Sun workstation can access up to four megabytes of memory. The SunIPC is a VMEbus board that executes color or monochrome applications written for MS-DOS applications requiring either the IBM AT color graphics adapter, or the Hercules monochrome adapter. It also features one parallel port and allows the use of two workstation ports as standard PC serial ports. An optional 8-MHz Intel 80287 math coprocessor is available, as are external 1.2-megabyte and 360-kilobyte floppy disk drives for MS-DOS software access and transport. SunIPC includes MS-DOS 3.1, Microsoft's GWBASIC, transparent filesharing software for the NFS, and utilities to convert ASCII files between MS-DOS and the Sun operating system. The software also features transparent conversion of MS-DOS program output for Epson FX-80 for FX-100 printers to network shared or dedicated Sun LaserWriter printers. The software also emulates the Microsoft PC mouse interface for use with the standard Sun workstation mouse. Although the SunIPC resides in one Sun Workstation, other workstations on a network can access it to run MS-DOS applications. In this way, Sun workstation users who occasionally use PC-DOS applications can have low-cost access in the same desktop package. The SunIPC board is $1995 in single quantities, and the accompanying software is $395 for the single-user version. The multi-access version is $995. When one SunIPC board is shared by remote workstations, the per-user cost of the system quickly drops. If the SunIPC board and software are shared by three users, for example, the per-user cost is under $1000. The SunIPC products will be available to customers in the third quarter of 1986. -- Ron Heiby {NAC|ihnp4}!cuae2!usenet Moderator: mod.newprod & mod.os.unix AT&T-IS, /app/eng, Lisle, IL (312) 810-6109 Submissions should go to newprod@cbosgd.uucp. Comments to the moderator should go to newprod-request@cbosgd.uucp. Requests for information should go to the author of the message.