In 1989, Sun dropped the "Sun-4" name for marketing purposes in favor of the SPARCstation and SPARCserver brands for new models. However, early SPARCstation/server models were also assigned Sun-4-series model numbers (eg. the SPARCstation 1 was also known as the Sun 4/60). This practice was phased out with the introduction of the SPARCstation 10 in 1992. The term ''Sun-4'' continued to be used in an engineering context to identify the basic hardware architecture of all SPARC-based Sun systems.
Sun 4/110, 4/150, 4/260 and 4/280 systems upgraded with the Sun 4300 CPU board (as used in the SPARCserver 300 series) were referred to as the , '''4/350''', '''4/360''' and '''4/380''' respectively.
The Sun-4 architecture ''per se'' refers to the VME-based architecture described above and used in the 4/100, 4/200, SPARCserver 300 and SPARCserver 400 ranges. Support for this was included in SunOS 4.0 onwards and Solaris 2.1 to 2.4.
Several variations on the Sun-4 architecture were subsequently developed; these comprise:
- (''C'' presumably for ''Campus'', the codename of the first Sun-4c model, the SPARCstation 1): this desktop workstation/low-end server variant substituted the proprietary 32-bit SBus expansion bus in place of VME and introduced a new MMU design. Supported by SunOS 4.0.3c onwards and Solaris 2.0 to 7.
- : a hybrid Sun-4c/VME architecture found in the SPARCengine 1 (Sun 4/E) VME embedded controller. Supported by SunOS 4.0.3e and 4.1e and Solaris 2.1(?) to 2.4.
- : originally a Multiprocessor Sun-4 variant, based around the MBus processor module bus, introduced in the SPARCserver 600MP series. The Sun-4m architecture later also encompassed non-MBus uniprocessor systems such as the SPARCstation 5 , utilizing SPARC V8-architecture processors. Supported by SunOS 4.1.2 onwards and Solaris 2.1 to 9. SPARCserver 600MP support was dropped after Solaris 2.5.1.
- (''D'' for ''Dragon'', the codename of the SPARCcenter 2000): a high-end multiprocessor architecture, based around the XDBus processor interconnect, scalable up to 20 processors. The only Sun-4d systems produced by Sun were the SPARCserver 1000 and SPARCcenter 2000 series. The Cray CS6400 was also nominally a Sun-4d machine, although it ran a custom version of Solaris . Supported by Solaris 2.2 to 8.
- : this variant introduced the 64-bit UltraSPARC (SPARC V9) processor architecture and UPA processor interconnect first used in the Sun Ultra Series . Supported by Solaris 2.5 onwards. UltraSPARC-I support was dropped after Solaris 9.
- : Sometimes used to identify the Enterprise 10000 (''Starfire'') 64-way multiprocessor server architecture. The ''Starfire'' is supported by Solaris 2.5.1 onwards.
- (''V'' presumably for "virtualized"): this is a variation on Sun-4u which includes Hypervisor processor virtualization, introduced in the UltraSPARC T1 (''Niagara'') Multicore processor. Supported by Solaris 10 3/05 HW2 onwards.
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