Mars Microsystems Inc, an previously unheard-of Pennsylvania start-up backed by Tatung Co of Taiwan, fancies it’ll be the first concern to deliver on the promised wave of low-cost, low-end Sparc-based machines compatible with Sun Microsystems Sparcstations made in the Far East and exported to the US and Europe. The venture, which got started less than a year ago and has yet to trumpet its existance, is planning to start supplying its Sparcstation-compatibles, now in beta test, next month. There will be three models built around 25MHz Sparc parts from Cypress Semiconductor, with an optional plug-in Intel 80386 board. They are rated at 16.8 MIPS, with a SPECmark of 11.3. The Mars-Tatung co-development effort and its resulting Mariner 4i product line is separate and distinct from the ERSO-derived VMEbus-based Sparcstation 1-compatible project undertaken by Tatung of America in Long Beach, California. The Tatung America project, whose first fruits were displayed with no fanfare and little notice last November at Comdex, has apparently hit some bumps, though the ValueStation series, as it is known, has come to light again following an OEM agreement that Tatung recently signed with GraphOn Corp.
Scrubbed
Tatung will be offering GraphOn’s X-terminals for use with the new workstations when they eventually appear, and Tatung has committed itself to a more serious relationship, having taken an undisclosed stake in the San Jose, California-based firm, for which it will also be doing manufacturing. The ValueStation has yet to ship or even be officially announced, though production had been scheduled for the second quarter. A formal introduction, set for Comdex/Spring in June, was reportedly scrubbed and rescheduled for fall. The Taiwanese, who lack any track record in workstations, have apparently had more luck with the Mars venture, one of four scalable Sparc projects to which they have committed. Mars resists the sobriquet cloner with its implications of an exact but cheaper knockoff. It wants to be known for adding value and being the first company to deliver a box that is – at one and the same time – both a Sparc workstation and a personal computer. The Mariner 4i, which was shown privately at a suite at Sun Expo two weeks ago and will be unveiled at Siggraph this week, will come in three models with an optional Intel 80386 processor that plugs into the motherboard. Mars says fully configured machines will run both SunOS and MS-DOS along with all their associated application packages at full native power. –
By Maureen O’Gara
The very first attempt to bridge the gulf between SunOS Unix and MS-DOS was Sun’s own 386i box, a product line built around only one microprocessor, the Intel chip. It ran SunOS but its MS-DOS mode was purely a software emulation. Performance was not its strong suit – perhaps the equal of an XT running Windows – and although it has earned Sun around $150m, it’s now being phased out in favour of a Sparc-only line. The price-performance claimed for Mariner compares favourably against Sun’s most recent entries, the Sparcstation 1+ and the IPC. An entry-level diskless workstation with a 16 monochrome screen will be priced at $6,000. A hard disk version with a 19 colour screen and 207Mb will go for $9,000. The MS-DOS option, which includes its own memory and cache, will cost $2,000. A spokesman said that the Mariner is rated at 16.8 MIPS (versus Sun at 15.8) and Specmarks at 11.3 (versus Sun at 10.0). All Mariner’s models use an AT bus, as opposed to Sun’s Sbus, giving them immediate access to cheap personal computer peripherals. Mariner’s screen is a 1,152 by 900 Sun Sparcstation-compatible. In 80386 mode, it’s a 640 by 400 pixel-for-pixel VGA screen via a proprietary hardware emulation.The company said the boxes are aimed at the power personal computer user interested in trading up to a workstation. Mars’ price points and power, if delivered as promised, would appear to make the buying decision anxiety-free. Mars, based in the suburbs of the city that for W C Fields personified any town that was not N
ew York – c’mon, it’s Pittsburgh – and named appropriately enough for a town close to its base, was co-founded by Brian Rosen and Kevin Gonar. It is Rosen’s third start-up, and was preceded by the now defunct Three Rivers Computer Corp, the company that provided ICL with its very first Unix workstation and cost the British company its equity investment – and the still on-going Megascan. Rosen cut his teeth at Xerox Corp’s legendary Palo Alto Research Center in the late 1970s working on one of the first workstation projects, code named Dolphin, a predecessor of the famed Star. He tied up with Gonar, who while at Xylogics landed the Sun account for tape and disk controllers, at Megascan. Mars currently employs 20 and Engineers were sent over from Tatung to aid in hardware and software development.
No equity
While Tatung is providing the bulk of Mars’ undisclosed funding, shares in the intellectual property rights of the Mariner, and holds exclusive rights to manufacture and market the thing outside the US, it has no equity stake in the company. Gonar says Mars would like to do a joint venture with Tatung because Mars has four more Sparc designs it wants to bring to market in the next 24 months. It is discussing the idea with the $2,000m-a-year Taipei-based concern but Gonar indicated the Taiwanese government makes it very hard for local firms to invest offshore – which sounds like a rather short-sighted attitude as the Japanese are eagerly snapping up all America’s hottest computer start-ups. As a result, Mars may have to go elsewhere for future funding and is chatting with companies such as the Lucky Goldstar Group and Samsung Electronics Corp in Seoul, South Korea. Mars will be handling the marketing itself in the US and expects to start selling both direct and on the OEM market immediately. Gonar claims that 75 OEM companies are interested in beta testing the machine. High-quality distributors and retail channels will follow in the first quarter of next year, the company promises.
