Talk:Sun-1

Anyone have a pic to add? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.191.19.42 (talk) 22:41, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Fewer than 200?
This seems way low. Maybe fewer than 200 68000-based systems before cutting over to 68010? I find it hard to believe that Sun sold only 200 systems in all of 1982, since the Sun-2 series didn't come out until 1983.

It's not totally certain to me from accounts I've read, but it sounds like they did cut over to the 68010 in Sun-1 systems before the Sun-2 series was launched. If so, this might explain the "less than 200" number.--NapoliRoma 18:12, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I was an early Sun employee and I remember the Sun1/100 upgrade program. Although I was not directly involed It seemed to last for over a year. I also know there were a lot of Sun 1/100 used internally at sun. Probably more than 40, maybe more than 75 or so. I also know they continued making them until 1985, mostly for millitary contracts that could not upgrade to the newer Sun 2's I also belive that once the Sun2 Multibus boards were availble, the Sun1 series were shipped with the newer boards. Robert.harker (talk) 23:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm going to delete the line from the article -- I know we're in WP:NOR territory again, but not really, since the actual problem is that there's no source for the "fewer than 200 systems" statement -- Robert just reinforces that the number is improbably low.--NapoliRoma (talk) 23:47, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

FYI : In the book : Sunburst: The Ascent of Sun Microsystems Hardcover – by Mark Hall, John Barry : On page 9, it states : "Fewer than 200 of the Sun 1 were sold..." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ebaugh (talk • contribs) 21:22, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Models
Authoritative information about the Sun-1 series is pretty hard to come by on the web. However, there is a reference to a "Sun 170" in the Sun Hardware Reference, which claims it was distinct from the 2/170, although it may have had a 68010 CPU board. Also, if this is a Sun 100, it seems a bit small to be housing 7 Multibus slots? Letdorf (talk) 09:55, 23 April 2008 (UTC).

There was a Sun-1 rackmount server. it was called the Sun1/150. I know, I have one. The Sun2/170 was an upgrade of the design with the Sun-2 multibus boards and an upgraded power supply. Evenually it also got an upgraded Multibus backplane. The reference to the Sun 100 is correct and yes it was a 7 slot chassis, again I know, I have one. Robert.harker (talk) 23:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay, I'll take your word for it.... but strictly speaking, "I know, I have one" counts as original research I think! :-) (see WP:NOR). By the way, one thing I haven't been certain about was whether Sun's nomenclature at the time included the "1/" in the Sun-1 model numbers (eg. was it officially the "Sun 100", or was it the "Sun 1/100"?) ... or was the "1/" maybe retrospectively added after the Sun-2 was launched? Letdorf (talk) 17:04, 24 April 2008 (UTC).

So if I read WP:NOR, if I post pictures of the gear, then it is allowed as original research. Robert.harker (talk) 21:47, 24 April 2008 (UTC)


 * That's slightly weird phrasing—or maybe it's accurate phrasing to describe a semi-weird contradiction: on Wikipedia, "original research" is a bad thing. But original photos are a good thing.
 * This is out of necessity, of course, since WP can't include any copyrighted material, so the main source for illustrations is going to be copylefted photos, most of which will be contributed by their original creator.
 * So a possible way to weasel out of the WP:NOR problem. If Robert contributes photos of his Sun-1 systems, illustrating the number of Multibus slots in each, he is no longer the source, the system itself is, so it's no longer "original" research.--NapoliRoma (talk) 23:42, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I would agree with Robert about the so-called "Sun 170". The Sun Hardware Reference doesn't appear to be a very reliable source for the Sun-1 models. Remember it's an unofficial work by one person and was last updated in 1995, when information on the oldest systems was harder to find on the net, so anything it says about those systems has to be taken with a grain of salt. In particular, the model 170 in its Sun-1 Models section seems to be a mistake, and it also doesn't list the model 150 under that section as it should.

If you search for phrases like "Sun 100", "Sun 150", "Sun 120", "Sun 170", "Sun 50", etc. in mid-1980s Usenet postings under Google Groups, you'll see a number of people tended to use these, without specifying in any way whether the machine was a Sun-1 or Sun-2. That, together with the similarity of the systems, could easily mislead someone into thinking a "Sun 170" was a Sun-1 model. --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 22:49, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

VM
I'm going to remove this statement: "It is not clear if the MMU was used by the Unisoft V7 port of UNIX since it did not support virtual memory." Also the unsourced (and false) claim that Sun-1 had demand paged VM. The Sun-1 had an MMU to support user address space switching, but it couldn't do demand paged VM because the 68000 couldn't restart instructions after a page fault. Rees11 (talk) 20:08, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

The Sun-1.5 CPU and the U models.
There's a lot of confusion about the Sun-1.5 CPU and the 100U and 150U models, and it's hard to find detailed reliable information. But here's what I've found while digging into this.

A 1988 Carnegie-Mellon paper on the Alpha distributed real-time operating system (PostScript file, Google HTML view) has a detailed description of the Sun-1.5 CPU (see section 2.3.2). This makes it clear that it was simply a Sun-1 CPU board with the 68000 replaced with a 68010. The other devices and the MMU were unchanged.

Lots of people seem to think that the 100U and 150U models were Sun-1 systems upgraded to Sun-2 CPUs, but this doesn't seem to have been the case originally. The Sun-2 was not introduced until November 1983. However, an April 1983 Usenet posting by Sun's John Gilmore announces the Model 100U and 150U and says they come with 68010 processors. Since the Sun-2 line and its new CPU design would not be introduced for another half a year, these 68010 processors had to be Sun-1.5 CPUs.


 * I'd like to clarify that I don't believe the above is completely correct. There are 2 Sun 2 "class" CPU multibus boards listed in the Sun FEH.  One will work in a Sun 1 or Sun 2, one will only work in Sun 2.The part numbers are 501-1007 (the one that will work in both) and 501-1051.  The Sun FEH that covers these board clearly indicates that the 501-1007 is for 2/100U 2/120 2/150U  & 2/170.
 * Te 501-1051 is only listed for 2/120 and 2/170.  The "original" Sun 1 CPU (270-0001) only lists 1/100.    If there is another CPU board, I do not see it documented in the FEH.
 * The 501-1051 and 501-1007 physically are very similar. The 270-0001 looks much different. Ebaugh (talk) 21:49, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Also, Sun's December 1983 Upgrade Installation Guide: Model 100 and 150 Workstations explains how to upgrade the Model 100 and 150 to Sun-2 standard. In doing so, it mentions the Sun-1.5 CPU as a 68010 board and shows its similarity to the Sun-1 CPU (see printed pages v, 5, 38, 44, and 62), and since in several places it also mentions the Model 100U and 150U as targets for this upgrade, this implies that these models did not originally have the Sun-2 CPU.

Of course, once a Model 100U or 150U had been upgraded to a Sun-2 CPU, it would then be reasonable to call it a Sun-2/100U or Sun-2/150U. --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 01:00, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Good work! Looks like the Sun Hardware Reference is a bit inaccurate regarding the early models. Regards, Letdorf (talk) 20:47, 30 June 2011 (UTC).

Sun logo
Early Sun-1 workstations and servers used the original Sun logo, a series of red "U"s laid out in a square, rather than the more familiar purple diamond shape used later. This is a minor pet peeve, but can I express my discontent at calling the logo "a series of red Us laid in a square"? The logo spells SUN for every 90 degree rotation of the square! It's much more than a series of Us 😁
 * Fixed. Jamplevia (talk) 00:01, 8 June 2023 (UTC)