SunPCi is a series of

single-board computer A single-board computer (SBC) is a complete computer built on a single circuit board, with microprocessor(s), memory, input/output (I/O) and other features required of a functional computer. Single-board computers are commonly made as demonstrati ...

s with a connector that effectively allows a PC motherboard to be fitted in

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...

SPARC SPARC (Scalable Processor Architecture) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Its design was strongly influenced by the experimental Berkeley RISC system developed ...

-based

workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstat ...

s based on the

PCI PCI may refer to: Business and economics * Payment card industry, businesses associated with debit, credit, and other payment cards ** Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, a set of security requirements for credit card processors * Pro ...

architecture adding the capability for the workstation to act as a '

IBM PC compatible IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such computers were referred to as PC clones, IBM clones or IBM PC clones. ...

' computer. The Sun PCi cards included an

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was introd ...

processor, RAM, expansion ports, and an onboard graphics controller, allowing a complete

Wintel Wintel (portmanteau of Windows and Intel) is the partnership of Microsoft Windows and Intel producing personal computers using Intel x86-compatible processors running Microsoft Windows. Background By the early 1980s, the chaos and incompatibil ...

operating environment In computer software, an operating environment or integrated applications environment is the environment in which users run application software. The environment consists of a user interface provided by an applications manager and usually an app ...

on a

Solaris Solaris may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature, television and film * ''Solaris'' (novel), a 1961 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem ** ''Solaris'' (1968 film), directed by Boris Nirenburg ** ''Solaris'' (1972 film), directed by ...

system. The SunPCi software running on Solaris emulates the disk drives that contain the PC filesystem. The PC software running on the embedded hardware is displayed in an

X window The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wit ...

on the host desktop; there is also a connector on the edge of the board that can optionally be used to connect a PC monitor.

History

The product arose from the issue of people who were working on a Unix workstation that was typically not Intel-based being sent a file from a

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

based PC and being unable to handle the file. Sun termed this problem ''interoperability''. By the year 2000 solutions to the problem such as emulators were available but their performance at the time was quite problematic. With Sun workstations adopting the PCI hardware bus standard this became possible. SunPC Accelerator DX

These cards were the successor to the earlier SunPC cards that had been available for Sun

SBus SBus is a computer bus system that was used in most SPARC-based computers (including all SPARCstations) from Sun Microsystems and others during the 1990s. It was introduced by Sun in 1989 to be a high-speed bus counterpart to their high-speed S ...

or VME systems. Prior to this a software only

application binary interface In computer software, an application binary interface (ABI) is an interface between two binary program modules. Often, one of these modules is a library or operating system facility, and the other is a program that is being run by a user. An ' ...

and DOS emulator called Wabi was used. SunPC was offered as a replacement software emulator that could be used to run more advanced applications, with higher performance, by adding an X86 hardware accelerator. In 1992 the SunPC Accelerator SX (16 MHz 486SX) or SunPC Accelerator DX (25 MHz 486DX) were available for SBus workstations, though the SunPC program emulates the PC memory with or without the accelerator present. An accelerator card is needed for software that requires 80386 or 80486 hardware, such as Windows 3.11 running in enhanced mode or Windows 95; without this hardware SunPC runs in software-only mode which emulates an 80286. In 1997 a 133 MHz 5x86 AMD SBus co-processor was available. Sun Ultra 5 front

The

Ultra 5 adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park. '' ...

workstation with an optional SunPCi for running Windows 95 or NT was announced in November 1998. The next year Ultra 5 systems including a SunPCi with a 300 MHz AMD K6-2 processor and 64 to 256 MB RAM were available. Windows applications running on this system were measured to be 40% slower than a desktop PC with a 300 MHz Pentium II, but the card was cheaper than purchasing a new PC. Following an in-depth review in 1999 with an original 300MHz 64mb memory SunPCi card, Kevin Railsback in

InfoWorld ''InfoWorld'' (abbreviated IW) is an information technology media business. Founded in 1978, it began as a monthly magazine. In 2007, it transitioned to a web-only publication. Its parent company today is International Data Group, and its siste ...

magazine noted the price was competitive and the performance was suitable for business applications especially when using the output attached to the SunPCi to a dedicated monitor. The downsides were that a separate license was required for the Windows 95 operating system, MS-DOS disk drivers performed slowly and DirectX was not available unless using the separate dedicated monitor. The 600 MHz SunPCi II was introduced in 2000. With the release of version 2.2 of the SunPCi II software in 2001 it was possible to have more than one accelerator card in a workstation or entry-level

Sun Enterprise Sun Enterprise is a range of UNIX server computers produced by Sun Microsystems from 1996 to 2001. The line was launched as the Sun Ultra Enterprise series; the ''Ultra'' prefix was dropped around 1998. These systems are based on the 64-bit Ult ...

server. By 2005 the SunPCi IIIpro was available for workstations such as the

Sun Blade Sun Blade is a line of blade server computer systems sold by Sun Microsystems from 2006 onwards. In June 2006, Sun announced the AMD Opteron-based Sun Blade 8000 modular blade server system. The Sun Blade 8000 chassis can hold up to 10 Sun Blade ...

150.

Hardware and software

Hardware

According to Sun documentation the "... coprocessor card is not just PC-compatible, it is an actual PC that is constructed from real PC components and follows the ''de facto'' and emerging PC hardware design standards."

Software

The SunPCi I coprocessor with version 1.3 software, the final release for SunPCi I hardware, is compatible with Solaris 2.5.1, 2.6, 7 or 8 running on the host. Solaris 9 support was included starting with the SunPCi II hardware and version 2.3.1 software. The SunPCi III is supported on Solaris 10 with patches, but SunPCi II is not. The first version of the SunPCi card was intended to run Windows 95 or NT. The cards were not limited to just "officially" supported operating systems; according to Sun "Because the card is a PC system, future Microsoft Windows operating systems should also be compatible." Later, the following Windows and Linux operating systems were officially supported by Sun on the SunPCi IIIpro: * Microsoft Windows XP * Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional * Microsoft Windows 2000 Server * Microsoft Windows 2003 Server * Red Hat 9 Personal/Professional * Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 WS/ES Some people have also claimed to successfully run some other operating systems on particular SunPCi cards, including

NetBSD NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was forked. It continues to be actively developed and is a ...

and

Debian Linux Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of Deb ...

Notelist

References