Pitching the machine as the first 80386 box fully to integrate Unix functionality with the wealth of MS-DOS applications, Sun Microsystems yesterday duly unveiled the Sun386i family, claiming that more than 75 third parties and end users had already implemented Unix applications and add-on hardware for the Sun386i. All applications for the Sun-3 and Sun-4 run on the 386is with minor recompilation, and MS-DOS applications run concurrently. Sun is pitching the machines at electronic publishing, financial services, mechanical computer-aided design, computer-aided software engineering, and computer integrated manufacturing, and general business use. They offer automated system installation and admin facilities, on-line hypertext-based help, icon-driven file manager, and multitasking windowing system; X11/NeWS windowing is promised for later this year. The stations include four AT slots, and come in Sun386i/150 3 MIPS and 386i/250 5 MIPS models, with 1.44Mb 3.5 floppy, 4Mb to 16Mb memory heterogeneous networking, high-resolution graphics, and up to 327Mb internally, 981Mb externally. A base Sun386i/150 mono station with 15 screen and 4Mb plus pre-loaded SunOS is $8,000; with 14 colour and 91Mb disk it’s $11,000, and a mono 386i/250 with 19 mono and 8Mb memory is $14,000. Current back-logs run out to 60 to 90 days.
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