On Wed, 6 Oct 1999, Erik E. Fair wrote:

   # http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19991005/tc/sunmicro_pc_2.html
   # 
   # http://www.sun.com/desktop/products/Ultra5/
   # 
   # How does this look on a price/performance basis against the other platforms
   # that NetBSD runs on? (yes, I know that the sparc64 port has not yet seen
   # formal release)

   I will make the (possibly erroneous) assumption that you have never
   run on an Ultra5 before.

   Peripheral bus is PCI.
   All the periphery is IDE (reading ain't bad, writes are slow as hell).
	   You could put SCSI there but unless it's got an OBP on it, you
	   won't be able to boot from it.  Sun PCI SCSI ain't cheap.

I'll vouch for the above.  Very painful sometimes accessing the IDE
devices sometimes.

The original internal disks were 4GB, they are up to 9GB now.

   CPU speed is 250MHz.

The "old" ones were that slow.  The latest are up to 333MHZ.  There have
been a number of different versions.

   CD/ROM is ATAPI (read: slow initial access).
   Default framebuffer appears to be the equivalent of a 1280x1024 cgsix.

The frame buffer depends.  The stock FB on the ones at work would do
1280x1024x8 down/up to 800x600x24.  These were known as PCX8 "cards".  You
can buy a PCX32 [a.k.a. PCX8P] card and get 1280x1024x24 [or better]
duel-ramdac [it would do 8 bit color and 24 bit color on the same screen
at the same time] if you want.  The newer U5 machines can do 1280x1024x24
with the onboard chipset without the duelness [I believe these are known
as PCX24 "cards"].

They take normal SDRAM, also.

   It appears to have a somewhat decent audio card on it.

   I wouldn't want one, but your mileage may vary.

Depends, I suppose.  They seem to run Solaris 7 pretty well [in 64bit
mode] and I couldn't really complain about it once I got a PCX32 in mine.

   # 	curious,
   # 
   # 	Erik


				   --*greywolf;
   --
   NetBSD: unshackling hardware designers and users from the bondage of WinTel.





Brad Spencer - brad@anduin.eldar.org   http://anduin.eldar.org
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