Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!me!radio!helios!stefan From: stefan@helios.toronto.edu (Stefan Mochnacki) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Sun 386i Road Runner Impressions Message-ID: <555@helios.toronto.edu> Date: 30 Apr 88 07:12:01 GMT Reply-To: stefan@helios.toronto.edu.UUCP (Stefan Mochnacki) Distribution: na Organization: University of Toronto Physics/Astronomy/CITA Computing Consortium Lines: 206 Sun386i : First Impressions from a PC Perspective Stefan W. Mochnacki David Dunlap Observatory Dept. of Astronomy University of Toronto I attended one of Sun's "open house" sessions on Thursday April 14. Two RR250's with 16-inch color monitors were up and running. I went armed with a 720KB 3.5" diskette carrying two Microsoft FORTRAN-77 v.4.0 applications developed on my trusty old Compaq Portable (I). I had no problem loading them up and running them in CGA windows. Interactive graphics using HALO routines worked well and extremely quickly; I found the new Sun keyboard highly compatible with the PC one. Multiple DOS windows could be brought up, moved and hidden easily. There was one slight glitch in the CGA graphics under HALO, but there was a mouse-driven pull-down- menu re-draw function which helped overcome it. The SunOS was described as "early beta-version". One of my applications is a benchmark which runs in 40 seconds on a standard 4.77 MHz PC with 8087 compiled under MS-F77 v.4.0, and in 4.6 seconds on a Sun 3/110 with 68881 compiled under f77. On the 386i RR250 the MS-F77 (16-bit) version ran in roughly 5 seconds wrist-watch time. This was a very rough measurement, but indicates that 8087-intensive 16-bit PC code runs respectably on the 386i in a DOS window. Sun claims the 3 MIPS-rated RR150 runs at 0.25 Linpack megaflops (???), and 1.6 M Whetstones. The RR250 is rated at 5 MIPS. The 16-inch color monitor is impressive; it's a very flat SONY unit, with rich colours and excellent resolution (standard 1152 x 900 pixels x 8 bits). Unfortunately, they didn't have on display a 14" colour monitor (1024 x 768 pixels x 8 bits), which is much cheaper. The 19" B/W monochrome monitor is the same price as the 14" color; a 15" mono with 1152 x 900 pixels is about $1000 less. Screen I/O appears to be very fast. In addition to native Sun graphics, the CGA, HGC (Hercules) and MDA (mono) display modes of DOS are supported. Under development is a board which will support up to 4 EGA or VGA windows on a separate monitor. <<< The Sun people say there are no compatibility problems with the smaller number of pixels in the 14" model. Would this be true for user-written applications ? >>> The CPU is housed in an attractive squat vertical floor- mounted unit. An optional expansion box for tape and disk sits on top of it; the combined unit then resembles a PS/2 Model 80. The internal layout is interesting and expandable: 4 proprietary 32- bit slots (one used by the memory board, another by the frame buffer), 3 16-bit AT slots and one 8-bit XT slot. The AT/XT bus runs at 1/4 the system clock, so on a 20 MHz RR150 that's 5 Mhz, rather slower than the 6-10 Mhz of most AT buses. The 32-bit Sun slots run at full system speed (20 or 25 MHz). *** <<>> *** Overall, I was impressed by the system. It combines MS-DOS, UNIX (V & BSD, or is it mainly BSD 4.3?), and a "user-friendly" interface analogous to the Mac if you want it. System and network administration is said to be a "SNAP" (no kidding); welcome news given the high cost of UNIX gurus. For the FIRST time we have a fully-configured 386 system marrying MS-DOS, UNIX, high-powered graphics and networking, which WORKS. It is claimed to be FULLY source-code compatible with the Sun 3 and Sun 4 lines; SunOS version 4 will be the new standard across all Sun product lines. There were some disappointments: (1) Only the "C" compiler will be bundled with the full developer's kit version of SunOS v.4. Fortran "f77" will have to be bought separately, but I was told the price would be reasonable. <<< I now have some information from the US which suggests the f77 compiler will cost about US$1000 >>> (2) There is only one serial port on the motherboard, and one parallel printer port. However, there are supposed to be several manufacturers of AT-compatible serial boards who will support the Sun386i. This makes some sense, since such boards are "intelligent" and impose little CPU overhead; unfortunately, they are expensive (typ. US$1300). (See April 4 Infoworld). (3) Delivery times on the RR150 are 90-120 days ... Pricing for academic users: << All prices CAN $, in Toronto >> The news is quite good. Don't forget the price includes an 80387 floating-point co-processor, 4 Megabytes DRAM (the 32K cache- equipped version is about $1500 more), an Ethernet interface, SCSI controller, a 1.4MB AT-compatible 3.5" floppy drive, video display unit and monitor as listed below: Model # List (Diskless) (FST & duty out) CAN $ RR150SC-4 (with 14" color monitor) 13500 RR150FC-4 (with 16" color monitor) 16500 RR150M-4 (with 19" monochrome) 13500 For a 327MB disk from Sun, add $8000 to the list price. For an expansion box with 60MB cartridge tape drive and 327MB disk, add $12000 to above list prices. For software and documentation, plus Fortran, add about $2000- 2500. <<< Revised figure; actual amount not yet available >>> For mono unit with 15" monitor, subtract about $1500 from 19". *** Note about disks: A CDC Wren IV, 300MB formatted, SCSI, can be had for $2752 from Dilog. A power supply and box can be had for about $200 from Computer Parts Galore ..... <<< Disk price revised April 15, 1988. Price dropped $550 ! >>> Thus, a stand-alone or server colour Sun386i can be set up for about $14,000 with discounts available to academic buyers (and others I presume). I recently priced out a similarly-configured "it came by boat" no-name 386 clone and it cost more, with no certainty that it would actually work ! Ditto for a heavily- discounted Compaq 386/20. The point is that "street-market" PC stuff comes with no extras, whereas the Sun386i comes fully configured for serious work, and will WORK. The "list" prices in the "street" PC market are quite misleading ... ***Note re PC-NFS: Networking with PC's: Discounts apply only to quantity. The prices below are for 5-24 units. CAN $ PC-NFS-51 (Software only, media, docs + license) $445 PC-NFS-3C51 (3Com card + SW + docs + license) $1,185 I am presently investigating cheaper cards . The Western Digital card apparently works, and others have appeared on the market. (The local 3Com distributor is Compuserve, ph.477-8088 (??)) *** CONCLUSION This is an impressive machine, combining the UNIX and PC/MS- DOS worlds in an expandable system, with excellent graphics and automated system management. (Expandibility is important when considering the likelihood of "supercomputer-on-a-card" accelerators becoming available ...). It is cheaper (at present) than the Sun 3/60 and is much more expandable. I would like to buy one. __________________________________________________ Some of my colleagues are not as enthusiastic: here follows a series of questions I've mulled over and digested from various discussions, and sent to the Sun representatives: (1) Use of DOS from remote node or terminal: Can one use DOSwindows (copyright notice on screen revealed it to be VP/IX) on the 386i AT ALL from a remote node using NFS or PC-NFS, or from a terminal on a serial line ? Yesterday I was led to believe that one could run simple jobs. While I don't need sophisticated remote DOS graphics or direct screen-writing stuff, one of the big reasons I want the machine is to be able to do big compiles and linking remotely in DOS. I have heard strange stories about Microsoft and legal wrangles ... PS: Could a 3rd party product such as DOSmerge be run on the Sun 386i to get around these problems ...? (2) Upgrading PC-NFS: Does latest PC-NFS have any windowing or x11/NeWs capability? Any other graphics capability ? (3) DOS task priority/time-slicing: Can the "nice" number of DOS windows be set ? Can DOS tasks be manually stopped ? (i.e. can they be truly suspended, not just set to run in the background?) I'm asking this because certain DOS applications and certain DOS system calls involve dumb polling loops which waste zillions of cycles. I'm very aware of this because I have been using a multi-tasking environment for 95% of my PC work over the past 4 years. I've even written polling turkeys myself ... you really feel them on a 5Mhz PC running DoubleDOS. ----------------------------------------------------------------- I have no connection with Sun Microsystems. The opinions are my own. -- Stefan W. Mochnacki INTERNET - stefan@helios.physics.toronto.edu Astronomy, U. Toronto UUCP - {uunet,pyramid}!utai!helios!stefan +1 (416) 884-9562 BITNET - mochnacki@utorphys.bitnet