[Sunhelp] Life of sun4m

[James Lockwood]

On Tue, 6 Jun 2000, Pavane, Brian wrote:

> Is it known yet when Sun will drop support for Sun4m from Solaris?  I know
> that with Solaris 8, sun4c is no longer supported.  I realize for Sun to
> drop sun4m could be partially beneficial to them, as it would force people
> to go out and get sun4u architecture machines.

Sun has generally supported a system OS-wise for at least 5 years after
the last ship date.  Given that sun4m systems were shipping until mid
1998, I suspect (and hope) that support won't be dropped until at least
2003.  At that time I would not be surprised to see 32-bit sun4u disappear
as well, with the 64-bit kernel the only option.

Don't expect many new peripherals and drivers for sun4m as sbus is largely
dead for new development. 

This is all guesswork, I am not "in the know" and I suspect that even the
developers at Sun don't know yet.

-James