o buy the SPARCplug unit alone and do your own integration. In that case, the only drawback is that you have to add a special connector to your power supply. Ross documents the required modifications.
The SPARCplug's fusion with the host PC is managed entirely through a 10Base-T Ethernet cable. As you do when developing Internet applications in a non-networked environment, you simply bridge the SPARCplug's Ethernet port to your PCs with an included cable. To reach the outside world, you must connect both systems to your LAN. Communicating between systems in this way reduces the hassles of more proprietary methods (e.g., SCSI), but it slows all your transfers down to the speed of the Ethernet link. For most of us, that's about 1 MBps.
The SPARCplug appears to Sun's Solaris OS as -- and is purportedly 100 percent compatible with -- a Sun SparcStation 20, even down to the SBus and MBus expansion cards. Ross supplies a conn
ector panel that lets you attach a Sun-compatible keyboard and mouse; it also connects you to the SPARCplug's on-board digital audio. There's no display connection on the back panel, however; Ross gives you a patch cable that connects the SPARCplug's serial port to the host PCs. You can view the SPARCplug's console through the serial port during the boot process and then connect via X Window System once Solaris is running.
Ross deserves considerable credit for innovation. The SPARCplug outstripped my performance expectations, helped by its 128 MB of RAM and dual 100-MHz SPARC CPUs. This configuration also ships with some serious software: Netscape's FastTrack Web server, Netscape's Navigator Gold browser and authoring tool, and Hummingbird's eXceed X Window Server and Maestro NFS server. All that comes packaged in a Dell 133-MHz Pentium system with 32 MB of RAM for a list price of just over $10,000. That price, by the way, does not include the extra 64 MB of RAM included with the review unit. Pricing for
that upgrade was not available at press time.
The best prospects for the SPARCplug are users who must run Solaris/SPARC applications. Having Windows NT a mouse-click away eliminates the downside of choosing only one OS. I am solidly impressed by the SPARCplug, but there's one drawback, besides slow data transfer to and from the PC host: excessive noise. This is definitely not a system for a developer's desk. The triple fans set up an amazing racket for such a small chassis. But even if you have to invest in some earplugs, the SPARCplug is an excellent value. Even if you don't much value the PC, a dual-processor SPARC system for $10,000 is worth lining up for.
Product Information
SPARCplug.........................$10,052
(as an add-in to a Dell Optiplex
133-MHz Pentium system with
32 MB of RAM)
Ross Technology, Inc.
Austin, TX
Phone: (800) 767-7937 or (512) 436-2000
Fax: (512) 349-3101
Intern
et:
http://www.ross.com
Circle 1058 on Inquiry Card.
The Power of Fusion
