Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request
From: bob@cis.ohio-state.edu (Bob Sutterfield)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Re: Why are new Suns thick Ethernet only
Keywords: Hardware
Message-ID: <8905072037.AA06928@tinman.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 11 May 89 10:20:59 GMT
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Organization: Sun-Spots
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Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
Original-Date: Sun, 7 May 89 16:37:07 EDT
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 7, Issue 283, message 2 of 13

rudolf@oce.orst.edu (Jim Rudolf):

   Can anyone clue me in to the reason why Sun chose to go this way?

When we were shown the diagrams for the new desktop machines several
months ago (under non-disclosure, and we kept our mouths shut), we
observed that they only had a transceiver cable connection and no thin
Ethernet BNC connector.  It may be to save board space that would have
been used in the thin net transceiver.  It seems to me that there's some
spare acreage over on the back-right near the SCSI adaptor that could be
put to advantageous use, but don't trust me on that - our hardware people
tremble in fear when they see me with a screwdriver in my hand :-)

Anyway, technical issues aside, we asked the representative (a bigwig from
MtView, not even the local sales office) why that decision had gone in
that direction.  He looked surprised, and said that they had asked
"several universities" for their preferences and had been told that
everyone preferred thick to thin.  On the basis of this market research,
they proceeded with the thick cable design.  By the time we saw the
drawings it was clearly far too late to change anything.

Will anyone here in Sun-Spots land confess to being one of those
universities that were surveyed?  Or did Sun just go across the bay to
Berkeley and see the transceiver cable bundles that look like Sequoia
trunks, and decide that that must be the One True Way?

Before we can use the new SparcStations in our environment, we'll have to
either buy or build thick-to-thin adaptors that will be another several
hundred pieces of expensive, fragile hardware and several hundred more
connectors for users in the student labs to kick around.  Else, we'll have
to buy the S-bus Ethernet card and use the thin net connector on that.
Does anyone know whether a diskless SparcStation will boot over its second
Ethernet?