SPARCplug

Ross SPARCplug Station

"The SPARCplug is a high-performance small-footprint workstation/server that solves the price/performance problem. Featuring high-end performance with a single or dual hyperSPARC processors, up to 256 MB of RAM and an SBus slot for options like a T1 or T3 line, ISDN or 100BaseT? Ethernet, SPARCplug delivers SPARCstation 20 class performance at less than half the price! The SPARCplug Solo allows users to simultaneously run PC and SPARC applications, and even cut and paste between UNIX and Windows applications. The SPARCplug Station and Server solutions complete the family. Possibilities for SPARCplug are limitless!" (presumably from the Ross Press Release, found here: http://popcorn.cx/computers/ross/sparcplug/)

The SPARCplug is a tiny workstation-on-a-board mounted in a module the same size as a full-height 5-1/4 inch disk drive.

The SPARCplug module contains a single MBus slot, on-board audio, SCSI, Ethernet, two RS-232 ports, a mini-DIN keyboard socket, a single SBus slot, and four 200-pin SIMM slots, and even a low-profile SCSI disk drive!

This module was incorporated into four retail configurations:

• PC: SPARCplug module mounted in the drive-bay of a PC, using power from the host PC. Packaged with X server software for the PC, to allow sharing of screen and keyboard via "remote-X-display".
• Solo: SPARCplug module mounted in a minitower case (basically a four-bay disk drive enclosure), together with a CDROM drive, packaged with Web server for the SPARCplug and a PC X server for installation on an extant PC.
• Station: like the Solo, but fitted with an SBus TGX framebuffer, and local screen and keyboard - a traditional standalone workstation.
• Server: like the Solo, but excludes the PC X server software, and in a rack mount case.

The standard models included either:

• dual 100 Mhz HyperSPARCs? (HM100D-256)
• dual 125 MHz HyperSPARCs? (HM125D-512)
• single 150 MHz HyperSPARC? (HM150S-512)
• single 180 MHz HyperSPARC? (most probably HM180S-512)

The SPARCplug enclosure is miniscule, and thus you must avoid using hot MBus modules - otherwise you'll cook it. Obviously, you will not be able to use double-width MBus modules in any SPARCplug system.

Aurora doesn't have one of these, but we'd love to have one donated.

Pictures:

Complete system consisting of the SPARCplug Station, 17" Sun Monitor, Sun keyboard and mouse.

Front of the unit, the SPARCplug takes up two 5.25" bays with a scsi cd-rom and hard drive in the other two.

Rear of the unit, power supply at the bottom and the various I/O ports across the top section.

Just the SPARCplug.

Rear of the SPARCplug, power, io and SCSI connectors across the bottom, video adapter in the card slot.

Bottom plate removed, apparently a slimline harddrive can be mounted to the inside of the plate to reduce clutter when used as an actual SPARCplug.

Top cover removed, the three fans within the cover are visible.

With fans removed.

(most text, and all pictures are from http://popcorn.cx/computers/ross/sparcplug/, some text from Rough Guide to MBUS modules)