Cray Research and Sun Microsystems have a strategic alliance under which Sun workstations will be integrated with Cray supercomputers, and Thursday introduced the first product out of the pact: the Cray FEI-3 channel interface to provide high-speed data transfer between the Sun workstations and Cray supercomputers. Cray will work with Sun’s Strategic Industry Partners Programme to bring the power of its machines to Sun users. Sun also cocked a snook at IBM, coming out with the 58TE terminal emulator, designed to enable Suns to emulate the widely installed IBM 5080 graphics terminal. The product, part of Sun’s programme to offer IBM links for workstation users, is claimed to provide 100% functional compatibility with the 5080 and runs on Sun-3 and Sun-4s. It is $50,000 including the channel adaptor hardware, or $30,000 for the software only.
