wanted: Sun 386 Workstation (Road Runner) info

[Matt Landau]

[Followups directed to comp.sys.misc, since this has nothing to do with
 Unix, and comp.sys.sun isn't a good forum for newsgroup-style interactions.]

In comp.unix.questions (<148 at gsg.UUCP>), lew at gsg.UUCP (Paul Lew) writes:
>I would like to find out more information about Road Runner from its user.
>Is it a stable machine to buy?  How about performance compare to other
>product?   Do the 16-bits bus slow it down at all?  

Ah, it's only just occurred to me what that question about the bus meant.

On the Sun 386i, the processor and main memory are NOT connected via the
silly 16-bit AT bus.  Instead, they use a proprietary 32-bit interconnect
scheme (it's not really a bus), allowing things to run as fast as possible.
There wouldn't be much point building a 32-bit Unix machine around a 25 MHz
80386, then sticking the memory on a slow 16-bit bus, now would there :-)

Interesting observation: I think Sun is the only company in the workstation
market that's delivering product lines based on 3 radically different CPU
architectures (M68K, I80386, SPARC) running the same OS and being pretty
much completely compatible at both the source code and user levels.  (I.e.,
you can sit at a Sun3, Sun4, or 386i and they all look the same -- in fact,
if someone hid the box and just gave you the mouse, keyboard and screen
you might not be able to tell which one you were using without hunting 
around the filesystem).  Are there any counter-examples I'm missing?

Also, as Guy Harris and others have pointed out, the new filesystem layout
is supposedly based on a scheme worked out jointly by Sun, DEC, and UCB.
I guess I just haven't seen anything written on the latest thinking at
the latter two.
--
 Matt Landau		    Takes more than combat gear to make a man,
 mlandau at bbn.com	      Takes more than a license for a gun.
			    Confront your enemies - avoid them when you can.
			      A gentleman will walk but never run.