On Sat, 14 Feb 2004, Frank Cusack wrote:

> On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 07:52:02 GMT Erik Magnuson <erik@cts.com> wrote:
> > Wished I had followed through on an urge to buy Sun stock a year ago...
>
> I'm not so sure. Sun will have problems executing. There's many a
> slip twixt cup and lip.

Sun stock is by no means a sure thing - figure over a three year timeframe
that Sun has a 20% chance of going under, 40% muddling along and 40%
serious growth.

>
> Sun still thinks they are in the hardware business -- they've
> released an Opteron server with no software!
>
> Maybe it's not really for sale yet, has anyone tried to order one?
> The specs page says Solaris x86 will be available in April, yet the
> order page says:
>
> The Solaris Operating System (x86 Platform Edition) is
> pre-installed on the server in 32-bit ...
>
> however you can't select Solaris in the menu.
>
> It is at a pretty good price, though, which is both surprising and exciting.

My impression is that the V20z is supposed to ship in April. The most
recent blurb on Solaris 10 stated it will ship before the end of the year
and be available for AMD-64 - presumably Solaris 9 will support AMD-64
before then.

Software availability is a problem for AMD-64 in general - best
availability is open source. Then again, Intel announced the 386 in 1985,
Compaq shipped Sep 1986, WinNT wasn't avialable until 1993 and Win 95 in
1995.

Erik

Erik Magnuson wrote:


> Software availability is a problem for AMD-64 in general - best
> availability is open source. Then again, Intel announced the 386 in 1985,
> Compaq shipped Sep 1986, WinNT wasn't avialable until 1993 and Win 95 in
> 1995.
>

And Sun had the 386i before WinNT was available and SCO supported it long
before WinNT came on the scene. OS/2 supported it more or less from the
word go. Coherent UNIX was 386 targetted as well, wasn't it?

I now have an urge to go and drag my Compaq 386 Lunchbox out of storage and
play with early SCO/386 again.

I must be sick.


P.

On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 07:52:02 GMT
Erik Magnuson <erik@cts.com> wrote:

>
> -snip- reference to US-IV in SB2000
> >
> > probably not supported in SB1000 even if I could justify the expenditure
>
> I'm not sure that putting US-IV modules in an SB1000 would make sense
> either. I do wonder if Sun is keeping the SB2000 around so that it can be
> upgraded with the US-IV (would make it a lot more competitive).
>

Well, the SB1000 is the same system as the SB2000, just the case color and
the cpu type it comes with is different.
Even the OBP is the same.
So if the SB2000 gets the USIV, so does the SB1000 by definetion.

--
Barbie - Prayers are like junkmail for Jesus

I have seen things you lusers would not believe.
I've seen Sun monitors on fire off the side of the multimedia lab.
I've seen NTU lights glitter in the dark near the Mail Gate.
All these things will be lost in time, like the root partition last week.
Time to die.

On Sat, 14 Feb 2004, Paul S. Brown wrote:

> > Software availability is a problem for AMD-64 in general - best
> > availability is open source. Then again, Intel announced the 386 in 1985,
> > Compaq shipped Sep 1986, WinNT wasn't avialable until 1993 and Win 95 in
> > 1995.
> >
>
> And Sun had the 386i before WinNT was available and SCO supported it long
> before WinNT came on the scene. OS/2 supported it more or less from the
> word go. Coherent UNIX was 386 targetted as well, wasn't it?

Never saw a 386i, but do remember reading about it. IIRC, SCO (not Darl's
SCO) was the first to support the full 386 ISA, OS/2 2.0 wasn't released
until 1992-93. Heck, Linux was supporting the 386 ISA in 1991. For better
or worse (mostly worse), PeeCee's overwhelmingly ran OS's from Redmond -
hence the emphasis on Windoze support of the 386 ISA.

I was making a similar point about the AMD-64, most are probably being run
in 32-bit mode. I have heard of a few being run with 64 bit applications
on Linux - one big advantage of open source is that new platforms can be
supported by a recompilation.

>
> I now have an urge to go and drag my Compaq 386 Lunchbox out of storage and
> play with early SCO/386 again.

That was a neat little box - not as convenient as a laptop, but... I have
a Deskpro 386 bought in '86.

Erik

On Sat, 14 Feb 2004, Barbie LeVile wrote:

>
> Well, the SB1000 is the same system as the SB2000, just the case color and
> the cpu type it comes with is different.
> Even the OBP is the same.
> So if the SB2000 gets the USIV, so does the SB1000 by definetion.

The US-IV is supposed to plug-in compatible with the US-III - so it should
be possible to drop a US-IV into a SB1000 or SB2000 (operative word here
is "should"). Depending on what prices Sun charges for the US-IV modules,
it may be cheaper to buy a new SB2000 with US-IV's (and it is pure
speculation on my part whether the SB2000 will be shipped with US-IV's).

Erik

Erik Magnuson <erik@cts.com> writes:

>The US-IV is supposed to plug-in compatible with the US-III - so it should
>be possible to drop a US-IV into a SB1000 or SB2000 (operative word here
>is "should"). Depending on what prices Sun charges for the US-IV modules,
>it may be cheaper to buy a new SB2000 with US-IV's (and it is pure
>speculation on my part whether the SB2000 will be shipped with US-IV's).


There's always: PROM upgrades, power/heat and other considerations which
might make that not so easy.

Casper
--
Expressed in this posting are my opinions. They are in no way related
to opinions held by my employer, Sun Microsystems.
Statements on Sun products included here are not gospel and may
be fiction rather than truth.

Erik Magnuson <erik@cts.com> writes in comp.sys.sun.hardware:
|My impression is that the V20z is supposed to ship in April. The most
|recent blurb on Solaris 10 stated it will ship before the end of the year
|and be available for AMD-64 - presumably Solaris 9 will support AMD-64
|before then.

Solaris 9 runs in 32-bit on AMD-64 now. I've installed S9 12/03 x86 on
a dual opteron machine, and it worked fine. The holdup in S9 for the
V20z is in the drivers for the on-board devices, which are coming in the
S9 4/04 release.

--
__________________________________________________ ______________________
Alan Coopersmith alanc@alum.calberkeley.org
http://www.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU/~alanc/ aka: Alan.Coopersmith@Sun.COM
Working for, but definitely not speaking for, Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Erik Magnuson <erik@cts.com> writes:

> Sun stock is by no means a sure thing - figure over a three year timeframe
> that Sun has a 20% chance of going under, 40% muddling along and 40%
> serious growth.

It all depends on the price - when I bought it was about $3/share and
they held allegedly nearly $1/share in cash, so to me it seemed like a
bet that the company is worth more than $2/share, which I think it is.

It's much easier to be enthusiastic about purchasing Sun at that price
than right now (it's at about $5.78 right now)!

Chris
--
Chris Morgan
"Post posting of policy changes by the boss will result in
real rule revisions that are irreversible"

- anonymous correspondent

Barbie LeVile <barbie@gods-inc.de> writes:

> Well, the SB1000 is the same system as the SB2000, just the case color and
> the cpu type it comes with is different.
> Even the OBP is the same.
> So if the SB2000 gets the USIV, so does the SB1000 by definetion.

I don't think Cu processors over a certain speed, if any, are
supported on SB1000. There may be certain motherboard revisions
necessary for the latest CPUs (e.g. US-IV) and perhaps an SB1000 by
definition is too old. Maybe one could get a newer motherboard, but
then we're no longer discussing a simple upgrade (and having seen a
Sun technician fit a cpu to an SB1000, I don't regard even that as
simple

And yes, I've seen an SB200 boot up and claim to be a 1000 - it amused
me.

Chris
--
Chris Morgan
"Post posting of policy changes by the boss will result in
real rule revisions that are irreversible"

- anonymous correspondent

As far as I could tell the 1000 and 2000 model were identical system besides
the slower pc in the 1000 750mhz and casing coloring.

- RB

"Chris Morgan" <cm@mihalis.net> wrote in message
news:86ad3hpjcv.fsf@elrond.bloomberg.com...
> Barbie LeVile <barbie@gods-inc.de> writes:
>
> > Well, the SB1000 is the same system as the SB2000, just the case color
and
> > the cpu type it comes with is different.
> > Even the OBP is the same.
> > So if the SB2000 gets the USIV, so does the SB1000 by definetion.
>
> I don't think Cu processors over a certain speed, if any, are
> supported on SB1000. There may be certain motherboard revisions
> necessary for the latest CPUs (e.g. US-IV) and perhaps an SB1000 by
> definition is too old. Maybe one could get a newer motherboard, but
> then we're no longer discussing a simple upgrade (and having seen a
> Sun technician fit a cpu to an SB1000, I don't regard even that as
> simple
>
> And yes, I've seen an SB200 boot up and claim to be a 1000 - it amused
> me.
>
> Chris
> --
> Chris Morgan
> "Post posting of policy changes by the boss will result in
> real rule revisions that are irreversible"
>
> - anonymous correspondent