[comp.sys.sun] SUN 4/110, 8 Mb, 140 Mb, 60 Mb Tape, 19in Mono. UPGRADE

karim@uncecs.edu (Omar A. Karim) (12/08/90)

I have this SUN 4/110 with 8 MB memory, 140 Mb disk, 60 Mb Tape drive and
19 in Mono monitor. It runs at about 0.8 Megaflops, 7 MIPS.  I want to
UPGRADE this if possible, but SUN wants an arm and a head for any possible
upgrade. They clearly would much rather I buy a whole new system, such as
a SPARC 2. I would like an improved performance of 8-10 Megaflops, while
retaining all the peripherals.  I have $7000 or so to spend. Have I stated
my woeful and perhaps common case clearly enough? 

I would appreciate any ideas or experience anyone has to offer in the way
of improving the performance of this machine while retaining such things
as OS, compilers etc.

Thanks.

Omar A. Karim
Department of Physics
U of North Carolina, Wilmington

jim@piggy.ucsb.edu (Oreo Cat) (12/12/90)

In article <635@brchh104.bnr.ca> karim@uncecs.edu (Omar A. Karim) writes:
>I have this SUN 4/110 with 8 MB memory, 140 Mb disk, 60 Mb Tape drive and
>19 in Mono monitor. It runs at about 0.8 Megaflops, 7 MIPS.  I want to
>UPGRADE this if possible, but SUN wants an arm and a head for any possible
>upgrade. They clearly would much rather I buy a whole new system, such as
>a SPARC 2. I would like an improved performance of 8-10 Megaflops, while
>retaining all the peripherals.  I have $7000 or so to spend. Have I stated
>my woeful and perhaps common case clearly enough? 

You can get a Sparc 2 with 16mb RAM, 200 meg disk, and 19" monitor for
about $8K with the educational discount.  This is a complete 28 MIPS 4
MFLOPS machine, plus you can hang on to your 4/110 too, or sell it to
someone.  Upgrading doesn't tend to be a very efficient process.

>I would appreciate any ideas or experience anyone has to offer in the way
>of improving the performance of this machine while retaining such things
>as OS, compilers etc.

You might try using gcc instead of cc, but it doesn't seem to improve
things as much on Sparc machines as it does with 68000 or vax machines.

                            Jim Lick		       
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