purtill@bourbaki.mit.edu (Mark Purtill) (05/29/90)
I have a bunch of questions about the Sparcstation SLC. If anyone out
there can answer them or point me towards answers, I'd appreciate it.
Reply by email, I'll summarize to the net.
1. Can the SLC be used as a standalone machine or does it need something
else as a disk server? (If the answer to this is that it can't stand
alone, the remaining questions are moot). I realize it comes diskless,
but I'm assuming that disks can be added to the SCSI port.
2. Will Sun sell one to an ordinary mortal? If not, are there Sun dealers
out there who would?
3. Does it come with SunOS? If so, how is it supplied? How are new
versions of the updgrade handled? If there's anyone out there who uses a
stand-alone Sun of any type, do you get useful support from Sun, or do
they only care about large-network customers?
4. Someone mentioned a CD-ROM drive available, along with a CD-ROM
containing SunOS. Can this be mounted as a file system, and if so would
that save disk space?
5. What's available in the way of cheap backup devices, e.g., tape drives
or even floppies?
6. How much do the SIMMs that it takes go for? I gather these are 4
megabytes with parity.
Mark Purtill
^.-.^ purtill@math.mit.edu (if that fails, try: purtill@athena.mit.edu)
((")) \@_: Dept. of Math., MIT 2-229, Cambridge, MA 02139; (617)623-6238lapyun@uunet.uu.net (06/01/90)
The Sun 4/20 does have the capability to hook to external hard disk. We have a SLC with 2 external 104M hard disk, 1 external 327M disk, and a 150M tape drive. I heard Sun has a package that bundles the SLC with 104M external disk, 150M tape drive and a CD-ROM (plus OpenWindow, developer GUIDE etc) for a low low price if (there is always a catch) you are in the catalyst program. Check with your Sun sales people
jaw@ee.ecn.purdue.edu (Jim Wildman) (06/02/90)
> 3. ..................If there's anyone out there who uses a > stand-alone Sun of any type, do you get useful support from Sun, or do > they only care about large-network customers? We have a standalone 3/160 that we bought new in 1985. We have always paid the hardware maintenance (24 hour swap service, call during regular business hours) and the software hotline. While the maintenance seems high, it has probably more than paid for itself. We had 3 or 4 bad monitors in a row, and just recently had to replace our Eagle and XY451. After running continuously for 5 years, I can't complain about the disk finally quitting. The engineers that I've dealt with were well trained and very knowledgable about the product. If the hardware failed early in the day, and we figured out what it was by 3PM or so in the afternoon, then we've always had the replacement the next morning. We get all of the software upgrades in good shape. My copy of 4.1 showed up before there was even much discussion on the net about it. We're not doing major software developement, so I can't answer about Sun's responsiveness about bugs and fixes. I did find and report a bug in one version of Transcript, that the contact at Sun confirmed. It was fixed in the last version. So, I'm satisfied.
purtill@bourbaki.mit.edu (Mark Purtill) (06/05/90)
A while back I asked a few questions about the Sparc SLC, and promised a summary if there was interest. Two people asked for the summary, so I claim there is interest, so here it is, along with selected answers from various people. Thanks to everyone who responded. ^me> 1. Can the SLC be used as a standalone machine or does it need ^me> something else as a disk server? (If the answer to this is that it ^me> can't stand alone, the remaining questions are moot). I realize it ^me> comes diskless, but I'm assuming that disks can be added to the SCSI ^me> port. Summary: Yes, the SLC can be used standalone if a disk is added. From: khb@Eng.Sun.COM (Keith Bierman - SPD Advanced Languages) | Yes. And if you order a SCSI disk at the same time as the SLC the disk | comes preformatted and loaded with SunOS 4.1<?> I am told. From: John.Chadwick@West.Sun.COM (John Chadwick - Sun San Francisco SE) | It can be standalone if equipped with disk, just like an SS1. Disks, tapes | CD-ROM and Exabyte can be added to the SCSI port. From: Steve Simmons <scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> | Yes, I have seen it running as such. ^me> 2. Will Sun sell one to an ordinary mortal? If not, are there Sun ^me> dealers out there who would? Summary: Yes and yes. From: John.Chadwick@West.Sun.COM (John Chadwick - Sun San Francisco SE) | Yes, anyone with money (:->. If your local sales office is underwhelmed | with the idea, they will refer you to a local dealer. I work in the San | Francisco sales office and people call up daily asking to buy one or two | systems. We are very happy for the business. The only exception is when | a person wants us to do massive benchmarking or similar exercises for | minimal revenue. From: roberto@bondi.phyast.pitt.edu (Roberto Gomez) | Let your fingers do the walking... Call 1-800-USA-4-SUN and follow | directions, or check with your local dealer. You'll probably end up | paying list price, though. But I'm just guessing. From: Mike Liveright @ VERITY <mliverig@verity.com> | I think that sun will sell to anyone. You may need to supply the | money up front so that they dont have to bother about credit. | I strongly suggest that you try to convince them that you are | developing code and "qualify" for a catalist discount. It may take longer | than you want, but it is QUITE VALUABLE. From: pjg@acsu.buffalo.edu (Paul Graham) | Yes, but you might have some problem. Eakins and ERI both sell Suns. ^me> 3. Does it come with SunOS? If so, how is it supplied? How are new ^me> versions of the updgrade handled? If there's anyone out there who ^me> uses a stand-alone Sun of any type, do you get useful support from ^me> Sun, or do they only care about large-network customers? Summary: The SLC comes with a license to use SunOS, but not media or docs. Updates and support are available if you pay for them. From: Larry.Wake@West.Sun.COM (Larry Wake - SE Sun SFValley - 818-905-0200) | The usual ways -- if you buy it w/the 104 Meg "lunchbox" drive, it | comes with SunOS 4.1 preloaded. If not, you can buy the OS | distribution on 1/4" tape, 1/2" tape, floppy, or CD-ROM. In fact, you | should do this even if you *do* buy the disk. Support is one thing | that is rather expensive for "mortals," alas, but if you can afford it, | you should definitely go on software maintenance. This gets you phone | support via the 800 line, and upgrades to the OS as they become | available. The 800 line doesn't really know whether you own 1 SLC or | 200 490's; you'll get the same service as any customer at the support | level you contract for (JPL, for example, pays to have a software and | hardware engineer onsite full time, so yes, they'll get slightly better | service; but if you contract and pay the same as they do, you can have | that at *your* house, too :-). From: John.Chadwick@West.Sun.COM (John Chadwick - Sun San Francisco SE) | It comes with a two-user right-to-use license for SunOS, and a small starter | documentation set (Owner's Set). A copy of the media is $350, and a full | set of documents (with binders) is $600. From: Steve Simmons <scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> | Surely you jest. Almost no-one gets useful support from Sun. From: Mike Liveright @ VERITY <mliverig@verity.com> | We have a small shop, 10 or so, but I have never have the impression that | SUN knows/cares as to our size... I like their suport, and recently they | have the people to respond in a resonably timely manner... From: pbg@cs.brown.edu (Peter Galvin) | I don't think so. You have to buy a separate software maintenance | contract, but they are cheap at this point (unless you want manuals). From: steve@umiacs.UMD.EDU (Steve D. Miller) | I don't know whether the 104MB Desktop Storage Modules come preloaded | with SunOS. If not, and probably even if it does (since the preloaded | system is pretty basic), you'll need a distribution tape or CD. I've | heard some real horror stories with some individuals who've bought Suns | and then tried to buy software having trouble (like a year's worth of | trouble!) getting Sun to ship to them. That could be a purely local | problem. ^me> 4. Someone mentioned a CD-ROM drive available, along with a CD-ROM ^me> containing SunOS. Can this be mounted as a file system, and if so ^me> would that save disk space? Summary: It can be mounted, but it's not clear whether you can use it (the SunOS CD-Rom) as a /usr disk or not (some say yes, some say no). From: John.Chadwick@West.Sun.COM (John Chadwick - Sun San Francisco SE) | Yes it can be mounted, and it's a good way to save disk space if the data | you want is available on CD-ROM. We're hoping to have SunOS on CD-ROM | "real soon", as they say in Marketing departments. From: ekrell@ulysses.att.com | No, this is a SunOS distribution CD for installing SunOS on your hard | disk. It's intended to replace the cartridge, 9-track and floppies media | Sun has been shipping SunOS on. From: Mike Liveright @ VERITY <mliverig@verity.com> | I have asked and the CD-ROM is probably not a system disk. Thus you | probably have to copy from it. I am not sure about that, but I realy doubt | if you can run UNIX from a read only media... From: pbg@cs.brown.edu (Peter Galvin) | Yes, and yes, but it would be slow compared to the local disk. | That's actually an interesting thought...get a CDROM for $999 and a | 100MB disk and you have a pretty nice package. I'll have to look into | it! From: pjg@acsu.buffalo.edu (Paul Graham) | Yes, it can be mounted. I believe that you could mount /usr read-only | from the CD but maybe not. It would be rather slow. From: steve@umiacs.UMD.EDU (Steve D. Miller) | Sun sells a CDROM for $995 list, and it works with the SLC. If you buy | before sometime in August, they throw in a 4.1 distribution CD. It is a | filesystem -- albeit a High Sierra filesystem --, but while you can mount | it, and you can even boot it, you can't run off it (i.e., use it as /usr) | indefinitely. ^me> 5. What's available in the way of cheap backup devices, e.g., tape ^me> drives or even floppies? Summary: Forget floppies. Tape drives are available. They can be cheap or not. From: John.Chadwick@West.Sun.COM (John Chadwick - Sun San Francisco SE) | Well, floppies would take just about forever, but the 150-Mb cartridge | tape (or third-party equivalent) is what most people use. It's fairly | inexpensive and reliable, if cleaned occasionally. From: ekrell@ulysses.att.com | Sun sells a desktop 150MB quarter inch tape drive. You can get the same | drive from third parties for less $$. From: Steve Simmons <scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> | You have to beat the bushes. A friend bought a batch of used QIC-625 (?) | (approx 500MB) drives for $350 each and sold me one (sorry, they're gone). | They have an imbedded SCSI controller. Try the back pages of PC Week, | especially the used/refurb equipment brokers. This is also a good place | to get cheap disk -- last week there were ~300MB maxtors for $600. From: pbg@cs.brown.edu (Peter Galvin) | I don't know of external floppy drives, but streaming tapes are | possible. Call any of the 3rd party hardware places listed in | something like Unix Today! or Sun Observer (or let me know and I'll | give you the phone numbers). From: pjg@acsu.buffalo.edu (Paul Graham) | Either, but not from Sun. ^me> 6. How much do the SIMMs that it takes go for? I gather these are 4 ^me> megabytes with parity. Summary: The SIMMs used are funny and currently only available from Sun, where they list at $1450/4Megs. Apparently you can get them for substantial discounts, tho. From: John.Chadwick@West.Sun.COM (John Chadwick - Sun San Francisco SE) | I'm only aware of Sun pricing, which is $1450 for 4Mb of 4Mb SIMMs. | The system comes standard with 8Mb, which is enough for many people. From: ekrell@ulysses.att.com | We can get them for about $550 (discounted). From: roberto@bondi.phyast.pitt.edu (Roberto Gomez) | About $1,450 for 4 Mbytes. The local sales critter claims that existing | third party memory won't work, because of the little boards they used to | cram the 4 Mbyte SIMMS in a small space, hence you'd be stuck on buying | from SUN, for now. From: pjg@acsu.buffalo.edu (Paul Graham) | I don't know (but I should). The simms are 1x36 (includes parity) and | currently are only available from Sun. From: steve@umiacs.UMD.EDU (Steve D. Miller) | I don't remember what the SIMMs go for, but they're nonstandard SIMMs from | what we heard at our meeting. I don't think they're yet available from | third-party folks, though I doubt they'll take long to reverse-engineer... Other comments: From: Mike Liveright @ VERITY <mliverig@verity.com> | p.s. I think that many of the questions can be answered by phoning SUN | directly. It will also give you a chance to see if you feel that | they will treat you as a person... Someone else: | You might be able to qualify for a developer program... if you cobble | up a suitable story (something about building a sw product). If so, | you can get a good deal on a whole hw/sw package from Sun. Of course, | I never said any of this (so remove my name before reposting!). Thanks again to all who responded. I hope none of you feel slighted by what I chose not to quote from your articles! ^me> Mark Purtill ^me> ^.-.^ purtill@math.mit.edu (if that fails, try: purtill@athena.mit.edu) ^me> ((")) \@_: Dept. of Math., MIT 2-229, Cambridge, MA 02139; (617)623-6238
eberbach@uunet.uu.net (Eugene Eberbach) (09/21/90)
I have SPARC station SLC with 8 MB RAM, 327 MB SCSI hard disk, and 150 MB tape catridge, running under UNIX SunOS 4.1. I would like to have a stand-alone configuration with laser printer (the only printer that Sun officially supports is the Sun LaserWriter), LaTeX, psroff, FrameMaker, connected via modem (Sun supports modems that are compatible with Hayes modems, such as the Hayes Smartmodem 2400TM)to Sun-4 file server and other Ethernet stations. I use actually very bad psroff without macros mm, pic, previewer; and LaTeX (better than psroff, although also from public domain). Unfortunately, dvipage previewer from LaTeX, which worked on Sun3 and Sun4, does not work on SPARC Station SLC (bus error - incompatibilities of SPARCstation SLC and Sun4?). Therefore I would like to have a new, working and relatively complete LaTeX and psroff for SPARC SLC. I look for the prices and the addresses of organizations where I can buy for reasonable prices: 1. modem 2. non-expensive laser printer to print PostScript files 3. LaTeX with previewer 4. psroff with macros mm, preprocessors pic, tbl,eqn and having a previewer for SPARC SLC 5. FrameMaker Any suggestions and information would be welcome Thanks, Eugene Eberbach School of Computer Science Acadia University, Canada EMAIL BITNET: eugene@Acadia.U.CA