Sun Microsystems Inc this week enhances its entry-level desktop graphics offerings with 24-bit two-dimensional colour imaging and new multimedia options on the low-end microSparc II-based SparcStation 5 workstation series. With its eye on the improved performance PowerPC gives Apple Computer Inc in the lucrative colour pre-press, document imaging, desktop and technical publishing market, Sun is pitching the latest offerings first and foremost against Apple rather than at its more traditional competitors such as Digital Equipment Corp, Silicon Graphics Inc and Hewlett-Packard Co. It touts competitive pricing, superior networking and multi-tasking – and its Mac Application Environment – over the Power Macintosh. The SparcStation 5 S24 comes with a new 24-bit frame buffer, effectively a low-cost, binary compatible version of the SX accelerator that features on the Mountain View, California company’s SuperSparc models introduced last October. S24, which Sun says performs 360,000 two-dimensional vectors per second, is designed to accelerate windowing, text and bit-mapped image manipulations; it doesn’t do double or Z-buffering, and therefore no three-dimensional rendering. It can display grayscale and colour images side by side. It supports 1,152 by 900 resolutions and is the size of an Sbus board but plugs into microSparc’s memory bus rather than using the slower Sbus interface. Sun prices 70MHz versions of the SparcStation 5 S24 with 16Mb RAM, 535Mb disk and 17 colour screen at $6,600. As well as the markets above, it sees sales in low-end geographical information systems, computer-based training and customer management. An 85MHz version with a 17 colour screen, 32Mb RAM and 1Gb disk is from $9,600 – at 85MHz with a 20 colour monitor, 32Mb RAM and 1Gb disk it is from $11,400. A 70MHz multimedia version of the Sparcstation 5 S24 with the SunVideo Board and camera already found on other Sun workstation models – called the SparcStation 5M – comes with 32Mb RAM, 535Mb disks, a 17 colour monitor and starts at $9,640. It is claimed to do 541,000 two-dimensional 8-bit or 360,000 24-bit vectors per second. All are due next month. 100MHz versions of the microSparc II workstations are waiting for the part from Sparc Technology Business. Comparing performance of graphics systems is rather an inexact science at best. Sun doesn’t use the standard PHIGS, PEX or OpenGL graphics libraries natively – although it offers implementations of PHIGS and PEX – preferring instead its own XGL graphics library. Silicon Graphics doesn’t report GPC picture-level benchmarks. Also, following IBM Corp’s lead, Sun will now list and support the Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp Freedom graphics accelerators already available to Sparc users, but doesn’t have the newest 003 models, although IBM does.
