The original SUN workstation was a modular computer system designed at Stanford University in the early 1980s.
The project name was derived from Stanford University Network, the campus network within Stanford.[1] It was inspired by the Xerox Alto computer developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center but built with modular lower-cost parts.[2] In 1979 Xerox donated some Alto computers for use in the Stanford Computer Science Department, as well as other to other universities that were developing the early Internet. The Altos were connected using Ethernet to form several Local Area Networks.
Professor Forest Baskett suggested the best-known configuration: a relatively low cost personal workstation for computer aided logic design work. The design created a 3M computer: a 1 million Instructions per second (MIPS) processor, 1 Megabyte of memory and a 1 Megapixel Raster scan Bit-map graphics display. Sometimes the $10,000 estimated price was called the fourth "M" — a "Megapenny".[3] Director of Computer Facilities Ralph Gorin suggested other configurations and initially funded the project. Graduate student Andy Bechtolsheim designed the hardware, with several other students and staff members assisting with software and other aspects of the project. Vaughan Pratt became unofficial faculty leader of the project in 1980.[1]
Three key technologies made the SUN workstation possible: VLSI, Multibus and ECAD. ECAD (Electronic Computer Assisted Design, now known as Electronic design automation), allowed a single designer to quickly develop systems of greater complexity. The Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL) had pioneered personal display terminals, but the 1971 system was showing its age. Bechtolsheim used the Stanford University Drawing System (SUDS) to design the SUN boards on the SAIL system. SUDS had originally developed for the Foonly computer.[4] The Structured Computer Aided Logic Design (SCALD) package was then used to verify the design, automate layout and produce wire wrap prototypes and then printed circuit boards.[5]
VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) integrated circuits finally allowed for a high level of hardware functionality to be included in a single chip. The graphics display controller was the first board designed, published in 1980.[3] A Motorola 68000 CPU, along with memory, a parallel port controller and a serial port controller were included on the main CPU board designed by Bechtolsheim. The third board was an interface to the 2.93 Mbits/second experimental Ethernet (before the speed was standardized at 10 Mbits/second).[1]
The Multibus computer interface allowed standard enclosures to be used, as well as circuit boards made by different vendors to create other configurations. For example, the CPU board combined with a multi-port serial controller created a terminal server (called a TIP) which connected many terminals to the Digital Equipment Corporation time-sharing systems at Stanford or anywhere on the Internet. Configuring multiple Ethernet controllers (including commercial ones once they were available) with one CPU board created a router. William Yeager wrote the software that was later evolved by Cisco on its version of the hardware. Les Earnest licensed the CPU board for one of the first commercial low-cost laser printer controllers at a company called Imagen.[4] The processor board was combined with a prototype high performance graphics display by students of James H. Clark. That group later formed Silicon Graphics Incorporated.[5]
Eventually about ten SUN workstations were built in the 1981–1982 time frame. After the initial ten, Stanford declined to build any more. Bechtolsheim then licensed the hardware design to be built by several vendors, but he was impatient with the results.[2] Vinod Khosla, also from Stanford convinced Bechtolsheim along with Scott McNealy to found Sun Microsystems in order to build the Sun-1 workstation that included some improvements to the earlier design.[6] Other faculty members who did research using with SUN workstations were David Cheriton, Brian Reid, and John Hennessy.[5]