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Scenes from the Solbourne Computer corporate video, March 1992

oldvcr.blogspot.com

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Re: Scenes from the Solbourne Computer corporate video, March 1992

#2

Post by johndoe0815 »

I would have loved to see an alternative future in which the open SPARC architecture (you can still get a license to build your own SPARC chips at sparc.org) kickstarted a similar development as the IBM PC did (unintentionally) a decade earlier.

Ideally this would have coincided with a Sun/Apple/NeXT merger so we would all use OpenSTEP for Solaris on open SPARC systems today :).

Well, we got something similar with the ARM Macs - though not really open for other manufacturers (at least you can install other OSes on the ARM Macs). The ARM Macs could be considered the last remaining Unix workstations - though Apple unfortunately tries really hard to hide more and more of macOS' Unix roots.

Re: Scenes from the Solbourne Computer corporate video, March 1992

#3

Post by neilv »

> Solbourne was the first to market in 1989 with multiprocessing SPARC servers

Soon after was the Cray S-MP multiprocessing SPARC server: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray_S-MP

(I was lucky to get to use the S-MP to "port" some product to it. They also had the matrix coprocessor there, which was much more parallel.)

Both Solbourne's and Cray's multiprocessing SPARC servers were before Sun's own `sun4m` products, IIRC.

Re: Scenes from the Solbourne Computer corporate video, March 1992

#7

Post by leetrout »

b800h wrote: post #6
leetrout wrote: post #5

Would be nice to have the actual video in addition to these screen caps.

Most of the people featured will still be alive; what's the legal status of the video re. privacy, I wonder?

You seemed to have deleted your other comment - seems like an unusual thing to care about.

> If the recording is done by visible cameras, federal law seems to allow videotaping of individuals in the workplace, even without their consent or knowledge, as long as it is not done to commit a crime.

https://www.workplacefairness.org/workplace-surveillance/

Re: Scenes from the Solbourne Computer corporate video, March 1992

#9

Post by b800h »

leetrout wrote: post #7
b800h wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the people featured will still be alive; what's the legal status of the video re. privacy, I wonder?

You seemed to have deleted your other comment - seems like an unusual thing to care about. > If the recording is done by visible cameras, federal law seems to allow videotaping of individuals in the workplace, even without their consent or knowledge, as long as it is not done to commit a crime. https://www.workplacefairness.org/workplace-surveillance/

Yeah I thought it made sense more in the context of this conversation.

Videotaping is one thing, publishing that is another. If I were a member of staff at a company during a rough point, and had to make a tough speech, I might be upset if it came out later. In some jurisdictions, releasing it would likely be a privacy violation, unless consent was obtained first.

Re: Scenes from the Solbourne Computer corporate video, March 1992

#10

Post by morcheeba »

johndoe0815 wrote: post #2

I would have loved to see an alternative future in which the open SPARC architecture (you can still get a license to build your own SPARC chips at sparc.org) kickstarted a similar development as the IBM PC did (unintentionally) a decade earlier. Ideally this would have coincided with a Sun/Apple/NeXT merger so we would all use OpenSTEP for Solaris on open SPARC systems today :). Well, we got something similar with th…

SPARC is still alive, thanks to its open licensing & established toolchain, for the niche rad-hard space market: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEON#LEON3FT_processor_core

Although the company is moving to RISC-V for future processors.

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