Mobius Computer Corp, a company best known for moving customised Interactive Systems Unix-on-Intel machines, has branched out with a Sparcette which it is buying on an OEM basis from an unidentified source that isn’t Sun Microsystems Inc, or LSI Logic Corp, or even an Asian cloner. The new Mirage series is a Sparcstation 1 clone which Mobius is building from OEM boards. It uses a 25MHz LSI Logic chip set, bundled with 8Mb RAM, a 340Mb SCSI drive, 17 colour monitor, Solaris 1.0, Open Windows, X.11, Motif, SunView and Clarity Inc’s office automation package for $7,000. Mobius started delivering evaluation units earlier this month and expects to ship in volume in the New Year when it will also add a Sparcstation 2 model for $2,000 more. Mobius’ interest in Sparc machines was apparently created by the software that will run on them, its respect for the basic Sparc chip technology being scant. But AutoCad doesn’t run on Intel, and Interactive just became capable of running Wingz and Frame and other Santa Cruz Operation Open Desktop-style applications. Then there’s all the software in Sun’s catalogue. Sparc machines, however, are just a holding action for Mobius until Solaris 2.0 on iAPX-86 takes off, it thinks, in 1993. In the meantime, Mobius says it intends broadening its appeal away from its industrial control base into new corporate markets through software such as that from Clarity.
