Notes on Sun Product Announcements

[Doug Moran]

Some Notes on the 12 April Sun Product Announcements in San Francisco:

1. Yet another name.  "Sun-4/xxx" is out; "SPARCstation" and "SPARCserver"
   are in.

2. Technical notes on the SPARCstation-1, aka "Campus" (skipping details
   which I expect will be in other msgs):
   - The optional internal 100MB disks have a raw average access time of
     19ms, but the (included) buffers decrease that average to 12ms.
   - Noise level with both 100MB disks seeking is claimed to be 40-45dB,
     which is supposedly equivalent to that of a diskless 3/50 (and
     significantly less than a 3/60).
   - There are 16 slots for SIMMs.  The presentation claimed that SIMMs
     using 4Mb dRAMS are expected by the end of the year, but I suspect
     that that is very optimistic.  Why only 16MB now?  I couldn't get
     a good answer.  However, the presentation made a VERY big point that
     the board was the size of a 8.5x11-inch sheet of paper, and I suspect
     that maintaining that size (for publicity purposes) may have been a
     major factor in not providing more slots for SIMMs.
   - The emphasis was on color monitors, but a 17" monochrome monitor
     was introduced as a low-cost alternative to the standard 19" monitor.
     I was unable to find out whether or not the HiRes monochrome monitor
     (1600x1280) would be supported, but couldn't get a solid answer
     (I was told "I don't know" and "I don't think it is").
   - The SPARCstation-1 includes audio input and output and there were
     several exhibits labelled with words like "MIDI" and "Multimedia"
     (guess who that is aimed at).


3. Atmospherics:
   Despite a number of minor glitches, the initial presentation and
   stage show was well done and generated considerable excitement
   among the audience (judging by the people around me, including
   several who were debating the offerings of several vendors).

   There was a very heavy emphasis on visuals and glitz, often at the
   expense of content.  For example, on the main floor, there were 100
   vendors of software for Suns, but they seemed to be there more to
   provide a chorus of endorsements rather than to be visited by
   potential customers,  The vendors were bunched closely together on
   very narrow aisles, leaving attendees little room to stop and talk.
   Each vendor's name was on a plaque located chest-high, and thus
   easily obscured.  I started walking the aisle to see if there was
   anything/anyone new present, but quickly gave up.  However, the
   visual message produced by these rows of vendors was strong and
   effective.

   The Sun exhibits had considerably more space.  Some were quite
   interesting (and drew crowds), but a significant number of them
   seemed to lack a real point.  Demos on many of the systems were 
   difficult because they were mounted on high platforms (chest-height)
   making typing awkward.


4. Faux Pas: The presentation began with a "motivational" video --
   platitudes and other vacuous blattering over a stream of unrelated
   images.  This was not well received by many of the people seated
   around me.  Then to make matters worse, there was a major sequence
   of images featuring the Los Angeles Dodgers (I would guess that the
   film was made in LA and they don't understand that the Dodgers are
   not universally loved).  Since a large fraction of the audience was
   from northern California, there were some subdued hisses and boos;
   a lot of people afterwards commented on the strangeness of the choice.

-- Doug Moran