Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cmcl2!sbcs!ameristar!rick
From: rick@ameristar (Rick Spanbauer)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Sun's Competitive Strategy (Was: Re: P1754
Message-ID: <1990Nov24.162427.10023@ameristar>
Date: 24 Nov 90 16:24:27 GMT
References: <6769@uceng.UC.EDU> <1990Nov23.181851.26588@zoo.toronto.edu> <11182@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Organization: Ameristar Technology, Inc
Lines: 41

In article <11182@pt.cs.cmu.edu> agn@unh.cs.cmu.edu (Andreas Nowatzyk) writes:
>
>In article <1990Nov23.181851.26588@zoo.toronto.edu> (Henry Spencer) writes:
>> So why haven't they changed Sun's policies regarding its older systems?
>> As I've asked (rhetorically) before:  what possible end can be served by
>> the continuing secrecy regarding the insides of the Sun 2?  One would
>> expect secrecy about new systems but a more relaxed attitude about old
>> ones.  From Sun, if anything we are getting the reverse!  This is why
>> I suggest devious scheming or sheer irrationality as an explanation.
>
>This is plain BS. The Arcons project here at CMU had SUN's schematics for
>the SUN-2 boards. This was necessary to modify the boards for real-time OS
>experiments. You just have to talk to the right people. This is much less an

	Actually, it is not BS, Andreas.  Sun has never been forthcoming
	with schematics or *any* low level information about their systems.
	At another place that I work for, one with both university credentials 
	and more than 100 Suns, we attempted to get such documentation. We were 
	told alternatively that either the information was "not available" or 
	provided only on a "need to know" basis.  Doing repairs in house did 
	not consitute need to know.  Note that we could not get schematics to 
	3/75 power supplies either, even though they are manufactured to Sun 
	spec by a third party.  Sun uses ECAD like the rest of use, and surely 
	has all their ECO trails and everything else on line - I submit that it
	is more than a matter of not having the information sitting pretty
	somewhere that people do not have access to the stuff.  As a counter
	example, these days I do most of my hardware work on Commodore Amigas 
	- CBM provides a 380 page reference manual (published by Addison-Wesley,
	no less) on programming their full custom ASIC parts in the Amiga and 
	they ship full schematics with *every* box they sell.  Remember that 
	CBM is a smaller company than Sun and that eg Amiga 3000 is a higher 
	parts count machine than the SS-1.  Sun is wrong in this matter.  They 
	ought to provide full low level docs + schematics on one of those nice 
	quarterly CD-ROMs they publish - if done right, they might get Valid to
	ship their schematics editor (stripped, of course) as a viewer.  I 
	don't have high hopes of this ever happening, though.

>   --  Andreas Nowatzyk  (DC5ZV)

					Rick Spanbauer
					Ameristar