Sun Microsystems duly announced its new RISC-based line of workstations yesterday along with the anticipated price-cuts on it existing ranges. Available now is the entry-level Sun-4/260 which has 8Mb of main memory and a 19 monochrome monitor priced at UKP35,000, $39,900 in the US, and a version with 32Mb memory and colour monitor with 560Mb disk subsystem and 60Mb cartridge tape is around over UKP70,000, $85,500 in the US, but will not be available until October. An upgrade from the Sun-3/260 to the 4/260 is available through a CPU board swap for UKP11,700. The 4/200 servers are available in pedestal and cabinet packages with the entry 3/260 model with 8Mb memory costing UKP33,000. The 4/280S in cabinet packaging with 32Mb memory, 1.2Gb disk and half inch tape drive comes in at UKP90,000. Sun says that the new series development has been driven by its customers demanding more performance. The repricing means that the bottom-end 3/50 now costs about $4,000; the 3/100 start at UKP11,000; and the 3/200 now starts at UKP25,000. Sun adds that it will be making major announcements every two weeks between now and the end of this year and in three weeks’ time will improve graphics performance. In the US, Sun also introduced the Symbolic Programming Environment, a set of software tools for development of artificial intelligence applications on its workstations. The new tools, designed to improve productivity and ease program development in Lisp, offer the first true symbolic programming environment for general-purpose workstations, says Sun. The Symbolic Programming Environment lists for $3,500 and will be available in the first quarter of 1988 for the Sun-4 and Sun-3 workstation lines.
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