PC/Unix platform for GRASS

[Doug Brooks]

Due to several requests for further information on the OPUS card 
that I mentioned last week, I have decided to put together as many 
details as I could.

As a background, a question was posed last week as to what PC/UNIX 
platforms were available.  I recently purchased some OPUS SPARCards 
that plug into a DOS machine and allow you to run UNIX.  With these 
cards, you can run DOS and UNIX (SunOS) at the same time.  The beauty 
of this particular product is that you have complete access to both 
DOS & UNIX at the touch of a 'hot-key'.  You simply jump back and 
forth between the two different systems.

This is a vast improvement over any DOS/UNIX system that I have yet 
seen.  The product that I have is called the OPUS SPARCard 2 
which provides the equivalent performance of a Sun SPARC 2 system.

The OPUS SPARCard 2 is a set of boards that occupies from 2-4 slots 
on the PC motherboard so it will generally require at least a full-size 
PC case.  Here are some of the Specs:

	40MHz SPARC RISC chip running at 28.5 MIPS
	Can hold up to 64Mbytes of RAM
	Built-in ethernet, SCSI, 2 Serial Ports, 2 S-bus slots (one is taken 
	   up by the video frame buffer, however).

Since both DOS & UNIX are running simultaneously, it requires a separate
hard disk but many of the other peripherals can be shared such as the monitor,
keyboard, mouse and 3.5" diskette drive.  Or if you wish, you could purchase 
additional peripherals and keep them separate.  In my configurations, I chose 
to share as many peripherals as possible.

The SPARCard 2 has the same performance marks as a Sun SPARC 2 and since 
the two systems are entirely separate, the performance of the PC has no 
effect on that of the SPARCard.  The SPARCard can plug into any 286 or 
higher PC.  You can be running GRASS applications on the unix side and 
quickly switch over to DOS to access your Windows applications and vice 
versa.  The system is quite impressive.  

For more information, please contact the following:

		John Chun
		Marketing Director
		Opus Systems
		3000 Coronado Dr.
		Santa Clara, CA  95054
		(408) 562-9340

or their GSA distributor which is:

		Elizabeth Fawkes
		HFSI
		McLean, VA  
		(800) 456-5335
		(703) 827-3160

Price range for the SPARCard 2 is $4,347 (List Price) for the SPARCard2 
with Color Frame Buffer with no memory or hard disk to $6,680 for the 
SPARCard2 with Color Frame Buffer, 500MB Disk & 16MB memory.  Many different 
options and configurations are available but that gives you a general idea.
Opus also has a lower end product that emulates a Sun Sparc 1+.

GRASS is up and running on ours and no problems have been encountered.  
We are using a 486 PC with 17" Super VGA monitor and the results have been 
very good.  We are running Microsoft Windows on the DOS side and Sun 
Openwindows 3.0 on the UNIX side.

In conclusion, for users that require both DOS & UNIX, this system is very
impressive.  Probably not too feasible if UNIX is your sole operating 
system but then that's not what it was designed for.

Please verify all of the above information with your sales rep as I am 
but a lowly user.  Happy, but lowly.  But please send any further questions
that you have and I will do my best to answer them.




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++  Doug Brooks                     ++  Internet Address:             ++
++  U.S. Army Corps of Engineers    ++  brooks at cecer.army.mil         ++
++  Champaign, IL                   ++  Phone: (217) 373-4433         ++
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