The SPARCstation 20 (code-named ''Kodiak'') is a

workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or computational science, scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating syste ...

made by

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

. The SPARCstation 20 was released on March 29, 1994, alongside the lower-end

SPARCstation 5 SPARCstation 5 (code-named ''Aurora'') is a workstation made by Sun Microsystems as part of their SPARCstation family. Released on March 29, 1994, the SPARCstation sold for between 3,995 at the low end to US$11,395 at the high end (equivalent t ...

. The SPARCstation 20 shipped with dual

SuperSPARC The SuperSPARC is a microprocessor that implements the SPARC V8 instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Sun Microsystems. 33 and 40 MHz versions were introduced in 1992. The SuperSPARC contains 3.1 million transistors. It was fabrica ...

hyperSPARC The hyperSPARC, code-named "Pinnacle", is a microprocessor that implements the SPARC Version 8 instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Ross Technology for Cypress Semiconductor. The hyperSPARC was introduced in 1993, and competed with t ...

CPUs, supporting up to four such CPUs all running in parallel. It sold for between 12,195 at the low end to US$29,995 at the high end (equivalent to $– in ). Sun superseded the SPARCstation line in November 1995 with the

Ultra series The , also known as ''Ultraman'', is a Japanese science fiction media franchise owned and produced by Tsuburaya Productions, which began with the television series ''Ultra Q'' in 1966. The franchise has expanded into many television shows, fil ...

, which featured

UltraSPARC The UltraSPARC is a microprocessor developed by Sun Microsystems and fabricated by Texas Instruments, introduced in mid-1995. It is the first microprocessor from Sun to implement the 64-bit SPARC V9 instruction set architecture (ISA). Marc Tre ...

processors.

Specifications

CPU support

The SPARCstation 20 has dual 50 MHz MBus ports that allow it to use faster CPUs than the

SPARCstation 10 The SPARCstation 10 (codenamed ''Campus-2'') is a workstation computer made by Sun Microsystems. Announced on May 19, 1992, the SPARCstation sold for between 18,495 at the low end to US$57,995 at the high end (equivalent to $– in ). Housed in ...

. With two dual-CPU modules and updated

firmware In computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computer, computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both computer hardware, h ...

, the SPARCstation 20 supports a maximum of four CPUs. The fastest CPU produced for the SPARCstation 20 is the 200 MHz Ross

. The

PROM A promenade dance or prom is a formal dance party for graduating high school students at the end of the school year. Students participating in the prom will typically vote for a ''prom king'' and ''prom queen''. Other students may be honored ...

in the SPARCstation 20 determines CPU compatibility. Version 2.25 is the last BootPROM release from Sun, and 2.25R from Ross.

Memory

The SPARCstation 20 has eight 200-pin DSIMM slots, and supports a maximum of 512 MB of memory with 64 MB modules. Memory modules for the SPARCstation 20 are compatible with the

Sun Ultra 1 The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light an ...

, and some other computers in the

sun4m Sun-4 is a series of Unix workstations and servers produced by Sun Microsystems, first appearing in July 1987, with the launch of the Sun 4/260. The original Sun-4 series were VMEbus-based systems similar to the earlier Sun-3 series, but employing ...

and sun4u families, but they are physically incompatible with the SIMM slots found in PC computers. Two of the eight SIMM slots are wider than the others and can be used with non-memory peripherals like caching NVSIMM and video VSIMM cards.

Disk drives

The SPARCstation 20 has two internal SCA bays, an external SCSI connector, and two bays for

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains computer data storage, data computers can read, but not write or erase. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold b ...

floppy A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, a diskette, or a disk) is a type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a ...

drives. Earlier revisions of the SPARCstation 20 case contain a CD-ROM and floppy bays that are slightly shorter than a standard 3.5" bay and regular devices intended for

PC compatible An IBM PC compatible is any personal computer that is hardware- and software-compatible with the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC) and its subsequent models. Like the original IBM PC, an IBM PC–compatible computer uses an x86-based central pro ...

computers do not usually fit. Later revisions of the SPARCstation 20 and SPARCstation 5 have a narrower slot for the floppy drive so a more-standard CD-ROM can fit. The

SCSI Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, ) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices, best known for its use with storage devices such as hard disk drives. SCSI was introduced ...

host controller is integrated with the motherboard. The SPARCstation 20 does not support IDE devices. A limitation in all releases of the OpenBoot

for the SPARCstation 20 prevents it from booting from a point on a disk past the 2 gigabyte mark.

Network

The SPARCstation 20 has one integrated AMD Lance

10BASE-T 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

Ethernet interface, along with a custom 26-pin AUI interface. Additional Ethernet interfaces can be added with an

SBus SBus is a computer bus system that was used in most SPARC-based computers (including all SPARCstations) from Sun Microsystems and others during the 1990s. It was introduced by Sun in 1989 to be a high-speed bus counterpart to their high-speed ...

card.

Graphics

The SPARCstation 20 has a built-in

13W3 DB13W3 (13W3) is a style of D-subminiature connector used for analog video interfaces. The ''13'' refers to the total number of pins, the ''W'' refers to workstation and the ''3'' refers to the number of high-frequency pins. The connector was som ...

video socket driven by an optional SX (CG14)

framebuffer A framebuffer (frame buffer, or sometimes framestore) is a portion of random-access memory (RAM) containing a bitmap that drives a video display. It is a memory buffer containing data representing all the pixels in a complete video frame. Mode ...

built onto a VSIMM. The VSIMM is available in 4 MB or 8 MB capacity, capable of up to (4 MB) or (8 MB) in 24-bit color. If two VSIMMs are installed, an auxiliary video board must also be installed to provide a second 13W3 video socket. Alternatively, SBus cards can be used, including the 8-bit color Turbo GX (CG6), 24-bit color ZX (Leo) and others.

Sound

The SPARCstation 20 has integrated sound with four standard 3.5 mm audio jacks for headphones, microphone, line in, and line out.

NVRAM

The SPARCstation 20 uses a battery-backed NVRAM module to hold data about the system, such as the host ID (serial number) and

MAC address A MAC address (short for medium access control address or media access control address) is a unique identifier assigned to a network interface controller (NIC) for use as a network address in communications within a network segment. This use i ...

. If the battery on the chip dies, then the NVRAM module must be replaced (or modified to use an external battery), and the NVRAM must be reprogrammed with a MAC address and host ID. Optionally a M48T08-100PC1 can be used.

Operating systems

SunOS SunOS is a Unix-branded operating system developed by Sun Microsystems for their workstation and server computer systems from 1982 until the mid-1990s. The ''SunOS'' name is usually only used to refer to versions 1.0 to 4.1.4, which were based ...

4.1.3_U1B onwards *

Solaris Solaris is the Latin word for sun. It may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature, television and film * ''Solaris'' (novel), a 1961 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem ** ''Solaris'' (1968 film), directed by Boris Nirenburg ** ''Sol ...

2.3 to 9 * Linux (Debian, Gentoo, SuSE 7.0 - 7.3, probably others) *

NetBSD NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was fork (software development), forked. It continues to ...

OpenBSD OpenBSD is a security-focused operating system, security-focused, free software, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by fork (software development), forking NetBSD ...

(up to 5.9) *

MirOS BSD MirOS BSD (originally called MirBSD) is a free and open source operating system which started as a fork of OpenBSD 3.1 in August 2002. It was intended to maintain the security of OpenBSD with better support for European localisation. Since then i ...

NeXTSTEP NeXTSTEP is a discontinued object-oriented, multitasking operating system based on the Mach kernel and the UNIX-derived BSD. It was developed by NeXT, founded by Steve Jobs, in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was initially used for its ...

3.3 and

OPENSTEP OpenStep is an object-oriented application programming interface (API) specification developed by NeXT. It provides a framework for building graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and developing software applications. OpenStep was designed to be plat ...

4.x (SuperSPARC CPU modules only)

Notable uses

* 117 SPARCstation 20 Model HS11 units, 87 with two 100 MHz

processors and 30 with four 100 MHz hyperSPARC processors, plus a single octo-processor SPARCserver 1000 were used to render ''

Toy Story ''Toy Story'' is a 1995 American animated adventure comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. It is the first installment in the Toy Story (franchise), ''Toy Story'' franchise and the Firsts in animation, firs ...

''.

Related computers

References

External links

FAQABOSS for old Sun computers
(A list of CPU modules for the SPARCstation 20.)

Vendor documentation

SPARCstation 20 System Configuration GuideSPARCstation 20 Service Manual
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sparcstation 020 Sun workstations SPARC microprocessor products Computer-related introductions in 1994