The

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 ...

Ultra 80 is a

computer 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 ...

that shipped from November 1999 to 2002. Its enclosure is a fairly large ( high, wide and deep) and heavy () tower design. At launch, it shipped with

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 ...

2.5.1, and was available in a variety of different configurations, with one (model 1450), two (model 2450) or four (model 4450)

64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit Integer (computer science), integers, memory addresses, or other Data (computing), data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit central processing unit, CPUs and arithmetic logic unit, ALUs are those ...

UltraSPARC II The UltraSPARC II, code-named "Blackbird", is a microprocessor implementation of the SPARC V9 instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Sun Microsystems. Marc Tremblay was the chief architect. Introduced in 1997, it was further developm ...

CPUs A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, and ...

and up to 4 GB of

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * Ra ...

. When released, the Ultra 80 was Sun's highest performance workstation. The Ultra 80 is similar to the lower-cost Sun Ultra 60, but is somewhat larger and supports more CPUs and memory. Although it was designed as a workstation rather than a server, it may be rack mounted using an optional kit. The Enterprise 420R is a server product based on the Ultra 80 motherboard in a specialized rack-mountable chassis, with custom power supplies and other parts more appropriate for server applications. The last order date for the Ultra 80 was July 2002 and the last model stopped shipping in October 2002. The later Ultra 45, introduced in 2006, supports a maximum of two CPUs, rather than the four of the Ultra 80.

Operating system

The Ultra 80 shipped with

2.5.1, and is capable running later versions of Solaris through Solaris 10 (Oracle Solaris 11 dropped support for UltraSPARC II, III and IV processors), as well as Linux and various other UNIX operating systems. The Ultra 80 cannot run Microsoft Windows directly, although an internal PCI card ( SunPCi II pro and similar) from Sun could be fitted to allow the use of Windows.

Hardware specifications and notes

Full specifications can be found on the Sun web site.Ultra 80 hardware specifications
/ref>

CPU

Although only sold with either one, two, or four CPUs, the use of three CPUs is a supported configuration. The CPUs run at 450

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...

and have 16-KB data and 16-KB instruction cache on chip with a secondary 4-MB external cache. The X1195A is the part number of one of the CPUs. Each CPU has an integrated floating point processor.

Memory

The Ultra 80 uses 144-pin 5V 60-ns

DIMM A DIMM () (Dual In-line Memory Module), commonly called a RAM stick, comprises a series of dynamic random-access memory integrated circuits. These memory modules are mounted on a printed circuit board and designed for use in personal compute ...

memory modules of either 64 or 256 MB, which should be installed in sets of four identical DIMMs. There are 16

sockets, so it is possible to fit up to 4 GB with sixteen 256 MB modules. The memory bus is 576 bits wide; 512 bits are used for data and 64 bits for error correction. The specifications list a maximum throughput of 1.78-GB/s. Performance is improved if 2-way interleaving is used (giving 512 MB or 2 GB) and maximum performance is achieved with 4-way interleaving, in which case all 16 memory slots would be used, providing the machine with 1 GB or 4 GB of RAM. Half of the Ultra 80's memory must be fitted on the motherboard and the other half on a memory riser board. Care is needed in handling the memory riser board, as the connector is not designed for repeated use. It must be tightened using a torque wrench supplied with the Ultra 80, as detailed in the service manual.

Internal storage

The Ultra 80 takes one or two 1" high

SCA SCA may refer to: Biology and health * Sickle cell disease, also known as sickle cell anaemia * Spinocerebellar ataxia, a neurological condition * Statistical coupling analysis, a method to identify covarying pairs of amino acids in protein mult ...

SCSI disk drives internally. It was sold with 18.2-GB or 36.4-GB disks, but can in practice use any SCA disk. The internal disks must be mounted in a carrier or spud-bracket (Sun part number 540-3024). The SCSI IDs of the internal disks are 0 and 3. These are set by the SCA backplane and cannot be changed. An optional 1.44 MB 3.5" MS-DOS/IBM compatible floppy drive can be fitted. The Ultra 80 could be purchased new with an optional 12/24 GB (native/compressed) DDS-3 tape drive, but will work with a DDS-4 drive, and probably larger tape drives. An optional 644 MB SunCD 32X-speed, Photo CD compatible CD-ROM drive or an optional 10X DVD-ROM could be specified as well. 3rd-party rewritable CD-ROM drives could also be used..

PCI and UPA slots

The Ultra 80 has four full-size slots compliant with PCI specification version 2.1: *One PCI slot operating at 33- or 66 MHz, 32- or 64-bit data bus width, 3.3 volt *Two PCI slots operating at 33 MHz, 32- or 64-bit data bus width, 5 volt *One PCI slot operating at 33 MHz, 32-bit data bus width, 5 volt. Some systems might be inoperable if a PCI 2.2 card is installed.

Framebuffer

There are two UPA graphics slots running at 112 MHz, supporting one or two Elite3D m3 and/or Elite3D m6 graphics options. The popular Creator3D

framebuffer A framebuffer (frame buffer, or sometimes framestore) is a portion of random-access memory (RAM) containing a bitmap that drives a video display. It is a memory buffer containing data representing all the pixels in a complete video frame. Modern ...

is not supported, but will usually (but not always) work. Some Ultra 80s were sold with the PGX32 framebuffer, even though its low performance made it more appropriate for use in server rather than workstation applications. Although not sold with the Ultra 80s, the later XVR series framebuffers also work, as do the Expert3D series.

SCSI

The Sun Ultra 80 is fitted with a dual channel Ultra-3 SCSI controller. The speed is 40 MB/s. One controller (c0) is used for the internal disk(s) and CD-ROM, DVD-ROM and tape. The second channel (c1) is used for the external 68-pin Ultra wide SCSI connector on the rear of the Ultra 80.

Input and output connectors

The Sun Ultra 80 has *Two RS-232C/RS-423 serial ports using 25-pin D connectors *A 2 MB/s Centronics-compatible parallel port using a 25-pin D connector *Standard mini DIN-8 connector for Sun keyboard/ Sun mouse *External ultra wide 68-pin SCSI connector *10/100 BASE-T ethernet using the HME adapter *IEC mains input connector 1 Gbit/s Ethernet can be used with the optional Sun X1141A Ethernet card. USB is not officially supported, but various USB boards for PCs have been known to work with Linux and Solaris.

Power consumption

Maximum power consumption is documented as 380W; the components list specifies a Sony 670W 12A power supply (Sun part number 300-1357).Ultra 80 components list
/ref>

Construction quality

The Ultra 80 is a well-built

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 ...

. It does not use cheap mass-produced commodity PC parts like some of Sun's Ultra workstations such as 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. '' ...

and

Ultra 10 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. '' ...

. It is very well cooled, suffering none of the overheating problems of Sun's previous quad-processor machine, the

SPARCstation 20 The SPARCstation 20 or SS20 (code-named ''Kodiak'') is a discontinued Sun Microsystems workstation introduced in March 1994 based on the SuperSPARC or hyperSPARC CPU. It is one of the last models in the SPARCstation family of Sun "pizza box form ...

Support

Support for the Ultra 80 ended in October 2007. In addition to official support, knowledgeable people, (often Sun employees), are regular visitors to th
comp.unix.solariscomp.sys.sun.hardware
an
comp.sys.sun.admin
Usenet

newsgroup A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically distinct ...

Benchmarks

Th
Sun Ultra 80 Workstation - Just The Facts
guide, gives the following data for the well known SPECint 95 and SPECfp 95 benchmarks, although a search of the web site of th
Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC)
does not show these figures. SPEC ceased use of the benchmark before the Ultra 80 was released, so the last results submitted to their web site are in th
3rd quarter of 1998
a little over a year before the Ultra 80 was released in November 1999. A number of results for the less-commonly-used SPECfp_rate95 and SPECfp_rate_base95 benchmarks can be found on the SPEC web site and are given below.

References

External links

Getting Started GuideRack Mount Installation GuideSun Ultra 30/60/80 Systems Rackmount Installation GuideUltraSPARC-II Module Upgrade
on Oracle's web site.
Sun Ultra 80 Upgrade GuideSCSI Cable Installation GuideHardware documentation
(20 pages)
Service manual
(302 pages).
CPU installation guideSun Flash PROM Guide for Workstations and Workgroup Servers - Standalone Version
{{Sun Microsystems Sun workstations SPARC microprocessor products