The Rough Guide to MBus Modules

This is not a general guide for the individual MBus-based systems - you won't find any information about peripherals (VME, SBus, disk drives, etc) nor memory-modules, nor O/S revisions, or indeed anything else, except as deemed necessary to describe the MBus module-configuration issues or to provide some background colour.

Construction of this guide was originally inspired by several questions posted to the comp.sys.sun.hardware newsgroup in 1998, and again a few months later, regarding upgrading a SPARCstation-10.

Recent Updates

• Corrected descriptions of Cypress-SPARC modules, courtesy of doomwarrior.
• Minor revisions to Buses, Relative Perfomance and HyperSPARC Chips.

• Added Ross Technologies' "SPARCplug User Guide".
• Fixed typos and incorrect formatting.

• Improved pictures of HM150S-512 and HM200W-512.
• Improved pictures of HM150S-512.
• Solair-10 page (thanks to François Cami).
• Pictures of old-style HM125D-256 module.
• More pictures of 501-2925.

Help!

There are a great many "holes" in the information - particularly PROM revisions for many of the older non-Sun systems.

There are several other outstanding questions which need an answer, see "Some Missing Pieces", and also my "to-do" list.

I am especially keen to talk to any past Ross or Fujitsu employees who can contribute information.

The information in this guide has been gathered from a number of sources, including:

• comp.sys.sun.hardware
• SunSolve Online and SunSolve CD (bug reports, patch descriptions, whitepapers)
• SPARC-Flash newsletter archives (from http://www.sparc.org)
• Sun Solaris/SunOS/Hardware manuals
• System manufacturers web sites (Sun, Bridgepoint, Fujitsu, Ross, et al).
• Assorted other web sites, such as the CPU Info Center
• My own adventures with several SPARCstation-10s, a SPARCstation-20 and a SPARCserver-1000E
• SuperSPARC and MXCC chip version numbers from the Sun Field Engineers Handbook, 1999 edition
• Solbourne-related information almost exclusively from Stephen Dowdy
• Technical HyperSPARC and HyperSTATION details from Thomas Weyergraf
• Detailed results of using SM520 in SS10 and SS20 from Earl Baugh
• Jeff Woolsey, who turned up the CYM6001K MBus module, and donated a picture of it.
• Fujitsu Teamserver information and pictures, and GCS Scorpion information and pictures, from Jason Andrade
• MX Mongoose details, and far-East chipset snippets, from Carlo Kopp
• Other individual contributions from several respondants

Note that older documents started to disappear from SunSolve Online and SunSolve CD releases from 1998 onwards. Many of the "assorted Web sites" have also disappeared, including that of Ross Technologies. A few of the "data" here are my own estimates, and are usually marked by a question-mark. As I don't have access to a hardware-testing laboratory, I cannot guarantee that the information in this guide is 100% accurate, although I certainly hope that it is!

Thus, you use the information contained in the "Rough Guide to MBus Modules" at your own risk. I disclaim any culpability or responsibility for any ill effects caused by use or otherwise of this guide.