The SPARCstation IPC (Sun 4/40, code-named ''Phoenix'') is a

workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or computational science, 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 syste ...

sold by

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

, introduced July 25, 1990. It is based on the sun4c architecture, and is enclosed in a lunchbox chassis. Intended as an inexpensive alternative to the mainstream

SPARCstation 1+ The SPARCstation 1 (Sun 4/60, code-named ''Campus'') is the first of the SPARCstation series of SPARC-based workstations sold by Sun Microsystems. The design originated in 1987 by a Sun spin-off company, UniSun, which was soon re-acquired. The ...

, it sold for 8,995 as a

diskless node A diskless node (or diskless workstation) is a workstation or personal computer without disk drives, which employs network booting to load its operating system from a server. (A computer may also be said to ''act as a diskless node'', if its d ...

and for US$9,995 with a 207-MB

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...

(equivalent to $– in ). The SPARCstation IPC was the top-selling Unix workstation for the first quarter of 1991, according to

Dataquest ''Dataquest'' is an Indian magazine focused on information technology related articles. The magazine is published monthly by Cyber Media India Ltd, South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined ...

, sliding to the number-two slot the following quarter (behind the SPARCstation 2).

Specifications

CPU support

The SPARCstation IPC incorporates a 25 MHz Fujitsu MB86901A or LSI L64801 processor. The SPARCstation IPC is limited to use as a single-processor machine.

Memory

The SPARCstation IPC has twelve SIMM memory slots, in three 4-slot groups. Each group of four slots can be filled with either four 1 MB SIMMs or four 4 MB SIMMs, for a maximum of 48 MB.

Disk drives

The SPARCstation IPC can hold one internal 3.5", 50-pin, single-ended, fast-narrow SE

SCSI Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, ) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices, best known for its use with storage devices such as hard disk drives. SCSI was introduced ...

disk drive and a 3.5" 1.44 MB floppy drive. Both are mounted in the top cover of the case. The hard disk slot supports higher drives than the 1 inch format that became standard later. It also supports external SCSI devices. There is no IDE/ATAPI support. Modern 80-pin SCA drives can work with an adapter, but do not fit inside the case due to the size of the adapter.

Interfaces

The SPARCstation IPC has the following interfaces: * SCSI * Ethernet * Two

RS-232 In telecommunications, RS-232 or Recommended Standard 232 is a standard introduced in 1960 for serial communication transmission of data. It formally defines signals connecting between a ''DTE'' (''data terminal equipment'') such as a compu ...

RS-423 RS-423, also known as TIA/EIA-423, is a technical standard originated by the Electronic Industries Alliance that specifies electrical characteristics of a digital signaling circuit. Although it was originally intended as a successor to RS-232C o ...

serial ports: 8-pin

mini-DIN connector The mini-DIN connectors are a family of multi-pin electrical connectors used in a variety of applications. Mini-DIN is similar to the larger, older 13.2 mm diameter DIN connector. Design Mini-DIN connectors are in diameter and come in s ...

s (

DB-25 The D-subminiature or D-sub is a common type of electrical connector. They are named for their characteristic D-shaped metal shield. When they were introduced, D-subs were among the smallest connectors used on computer systems. Description, ...

adapter cables are provided) * Video:

DB13W3 DB13W3 (13W3) is a style of D-subminiature connector used for Analog signal, analog video interfaces. The ''13'' refers to the total number of pins, the ''W'' refers to workstation and the ''3'' refers to the number of high-frequency pins. The co ...

connector for integrated bwtwo monochrome framebuffer * Keyboard, mouse: two 8-pin

s * Two SBus slots

Network support

The SPARCstation IPC comes with an on-board AMD Lance

Ethernet Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

chipset and a 15-pin AUI connector, which can connect to

10BASE2 10BASE2 (also known as cheapernet, thin Ethernet, thinnet, and thinwire) is a variant of Ethernet that uses thin coaxial cable terminated with BNC connectors to build a local area network. During the mid to late 1980s, this was the dominant ...

10BASE5 10BASE5 (also known as thick Ethernet or thicknet) was the first commercially available variant of Ethernet. The technology was standardized in 1982 as IEEE 802.3. 10BASE5 uses a thick and stiff coaxial cable up to in length. Up to 100 stat ...

10BASE-T 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

via an appropriate

transceiver In radio communication, a transceiver is an electronic device which is a combination of a radio ''trans''mitter and a re''ceiver'', hence the name. It can both transmit and receive radio waves using an antenna, for communication purposes. The ...

. The OpenBoot ROM is able to boot from network, using RARP and TFTP. Like all other

SPARCstation The SPARCstation, SPARCserver and SPARCcenter product lines are a series of SPARC-based computer workstations and server (computing), servers in desktop, desk side (pedestal) and rack-based form factor configurations, that were developed and sol ...

systems, the IPC holds system information such as MAC address and serial number in NVRAM. If the battery on this chip dies, then the system will not be able to boot without manual intervention (keyboard entry of boot parameters).

NVRAM

The SPARCstation IPC uses an M48T02 battery-backed RTC with RAM chip which handles the real time clock and boot parameter storage. An issue with this chip is that the battery is internal, which means the entire chip must be replaced when its battery runs out. As all SPARCstation IPCs made are now older than the battery life of this chip, a substantial number of these systems now refuse to boot. Additionally, the SPARCstation IPC design used the reserved bits in the M48T02's NVRAM in a non-standard way; since later revisions of the M48T02 chip exert stricter control over these bits, a current M48T02 will store the NVRAM data, but the RTC will not function correctly and the system may fail to auto-boot. Due to incompatibilities with modern M48T02s, it is common to modify failed NVRAMs by cutting into the encapsulation and patching in a new battery. It is also possible to replace the entire encapsulation, which also contains a 32.768 kHz clock crystal.

Operating systems

The following operating systems will run on a SPARCstation IPC: *

SunOS SunOS is a Unix-branded operating system developed by Sun Microsystems for their workstation and server computer systems from 1982 until the mid-1990s. The ''SunOS'' name is usually only used to refer to versions 1.0 to 4.1.4, which were based ...

4.0.3c onwards *

Solaris Solaris is the Latin word for sun. It 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 ** ''Sol ...

2.0 to Solaris 7 *

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

– Some but not all distributions still support this SPARC32 sub-architecture *

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

/sparc32 since 1.0 *

OpenBSD OpenBSD is a security-focused operating system, security-focused, free software, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by fork (software development), forking NetBSD ...

/sparc32 - All versions up to 5.9 (OpenBSD 5.9 was the last release to support SPARC32)

Related computers

The

(Sun 4/65) is architecturally very similar but housed in a

pizza box form factor In computing, a pizza box is a style of case design for desktop computers or network switches. Pizza box cases tend to be wide and flat, normally in height, resembling pizza delivery boxes and thus the name. This is in contrast to a tower sy ...

. The SPARCstation IPX (Sun 4/50) is a later lunchbox form factor system.

References

External links

Obsolyte: SPARCstation IPC

Parts List for SPARCstation IPC

Documentation
{{Sun Microsystems Sun workstations SPARC microprocessor products Computer-related introductions in 1990