Restoring a Sun SPARCstation IPX

Andrew Back posts about restoring a vintage Sun SPARCstation IPX workstation.

If you worked in computing in the early 1990s, studied computer science around then, or just had a keen interest in computers, the chances are that Sun Microsystems was a familiar name and their workstations were highly coveted.

At this time PCs were fast becoming the standard desktop computer and pretty much all looked the same, while if you worked in a creative industry you might have been lucky enough to use a Mac — but even then, the differences were not so profound

However, there was a breed of computer that really stood out from the rest and not only looked far more exotic, but had a clear lead in terms of performance and capabilities — the UNIX workstation.

While most people were running Windows 3.x and being frustrated at the limited resources, lack of true multitasking and all too frequent instability, UNIX workstations provided a far more advanced, feature rich and robust environment. This included proper multitasking and typically greater RAM, more powerful CPU and advanced graphics, plus higher performance disks etc. Of course, this all came at a cost and a UNIX workstation could easily have a price tag 10x that of a typical PC.

Check out the multipart series in the RS online community starting with Part 1.

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