Sun's 25th Anniversary - A Look Back

Sun-1 Workstation
In May 1982, Sun shipped its first Sun-1 workstation computer, based on Andy Bechtolsheim's work at Stanford University. The Sun-1 included a 16-bit Motorola 68000 CPU that ran UNIX, featured high-resolution graphics, and Ethernet networking capabilities. Sun produced fewer than two hundred Sun-1 workstations before switching to the 68010 processor, which supported virtual memory.

Sun SPARCstation 1
In 1989, Sun introduced the first SPARC-based computer for a base price of US$9000. It was very well received and introduced the Sun-4c architecture. Most computer manufacturers at that time were thinking about bringing in RISC based computers into the market. The SPARC-based systems, unlike the prevalent RISC-based systems of that time introduced a new wave of computing. While some of Sun's competitors were delayed in producing their next-generation products, Sun came in with the SPARCstation 1 which proved to be very successful across the industry. In 1990, Sun followed up with with four new models including a price-breaking system under $5,000.

Java Technology
In 1991, Java technology was created as a computer programming tool in a small, secret effort called "the Green Project" at Sun. The secret "Green Team," fully staffed at 13 people and led by James Gosling, locked themselves away in an anonymous office on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, cut off all regular communications with Sun, and worked around the clock for 18 months. In 1995, just in time for the initial public introduction of the World Wide Web, Sun introduced the first universal software platform, designed from the ground up for the Internet and corporate intranets.

Sun SPARCstation 10
In 1992, leading the desktop performance race, Sun introduced the SPARCstation 10 system, the first multiprocessing desktop computer. Then in 1993, the first components were purchased for what would be known as the SuperSPARC. This was the third generation of this project comprised of 8 Sun SPARCstation 10 workstations. Each node had four 90MHz hyperSPARC processor modules, and 288 MB of RAM. This project has been so successful, that as of June 2002, ten years after its construction began, it was still in service as a tool to teach parallel computing techniques.

XML - At Home in Cyberspace
In 1996, Sun engineer Jon Bosak led the World Wide Web Consortium team developing XML (Extensible Markup Language) which has become the standard for business data. XML facilitates the sharing of data across different information systems, particularly systems connected via the Internet. It supports a wide variety of applications and its languages or 'dialects' can be designed by anyone and processed by conforming software.

Sun Goes Wireless
In March 2000 Sun announced iPlanet would be Sun's Preferred E-Commerce Solution and unveiled the industry's first intelligent communications platform which enabled software platforms rapid delivery of wireless and wireline services. The next year in 2001, iPlanet delivered the first integrated wireless portal server for anytime, anywhere, any device access.

Sun Fire V40z Server
In August 2004, the Sun Fire V40z server was released. Sun's first systems based on the AMD Opteron processor delivered the total system solution. The unparalleled choice of operating systems including Solaris OS, high-performance hardware, and the Sun Java Enterprise System software stack, offers the fastest AMD Opteron processor-based product line available with leading price/performance. The next leap in return on enterprise IT investment with extreme performance, reliability, serviceability, and flexibility.

Sun Grid
In February 2005, Sun announced it is radically simplifying the way customers select, acquire and use next-generation IT infrastructure through its new Sun Grid utility offerings. The Internet-based access to a public compute utility allows flexible, metered access to enormous computing power over the network for the affordable price of $1/CPU-hr. - radically simplifying the way Sun customers select, acquire and use next-generation IT infrastructure.

Solaris 10
Released in February 2005, Solaris 10 is the first and only free and open source operating system —available on hundreds of x64/x86 platforms and supported for thousands of open source and ISV applications. It has the largest installed-base of any other commercial UNIX or Linux distribution on the planet. The competition just can't keep up. With 125 world records to its name, Solaris 10 is the proven performance and price/performance winner.

UltraSPARC T1 Processor
First Released in November 2005, the UltraSPARC T1 is the world's first eco-responsible processor using less than 70 watts of power. Designed to deliver millions of dollars in energy savings for customer, the patented CoolThread processor uses less than half the energy of Intel Xeon or IBM Power processors - consumption closer to that of many household light bulbs. Research shows that UltraSPARC T1 processor performance could cut the number of Web servers in the world by half, slashing power requirements and having the same effect in reducing carbon dioxide emissions as planting one million acres of trees.

Sun Fire X4500 Server
In July 2006, Sun introduced the world's first hybrid data server, the Sun Fire X4500 server. It combines high data throughput with highest storage density available in a server and AMD Opteron processors in this 4-way server. These capabilities serve companies that host high-bandwidth applications such as HPC, data warehousing/business intelligence, digital media streaming, digital surveillance and data analysis. By integrating state of the art server and storage technologies, the Sun Fire X4500 Server delivers the remarkable performance of a four-way x64 server and the highest storage density available, with 24 TB in 4U of rack space. This system also delivers incredibly high data throughput for about half the cost of traditional solutions.

Project Blackbox
Announced in October 2006, Project Blackbox is the world's first virtualized datacenter--built into a shipping container and optimized to deliver extreme energy, space, and performance efficiencies. Designed to address the needs of customers who are running out of space, power and cooling, Project Blackbox gives customers a glimpse into the fast, cost-effective datacenter deployments coming in the near future--where thinking out of the box means putting an IT infrastructure in a box. You'll never look at an ordinary shipping container quite the same way again.

Open Java
In November 2006 in a historic move, Sun open-sourced all of its Java platform implementations under the same license used by the GNU/Linux operating system. This was the largest contribution ever made to the free software community and places Sun squarely at the front of the open-source movement - as the single biggest commercial contributor.