Manufacturer: Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Model: Sun Blade 150 (UltraSPARC-IIe)

Date: Introduced 2002

Category: UNIX Workstation / Engineering Workstation

The Sun Blade 150 is a 64-bit UNIX workstation developed by Sun Microsystems and released in 2002 as part of the Sun Blade family. Powered by a single UltraSPARC-IIe processor running at 550 MHz, the system was designed for professional engineers, scientists, and software developers who required the stability and performance of Sun's Solaris operating system on affordable desktop-class hardware.

The workstation could be configured with upto 2 GB of SDRAM, integrated ATI Rage XL graphics, and Ultra ATA/100 IDE storage. It featured a full complement of expansion ports - including USB, Ethernet, serial, parallel, and PCI slots - enabling connectivity to a wide range of peripherals and networked environments. The system typically ran Solaris 8, 9, 10, and supported Sun's advanced graphical environments such as the Common Desktop Environment (CDE) and GNOME.

The Sun Blade 150 represented Sun's transition toward cost-effective, open standards-based UNIX workstations, replacing earlier Ultra 5 and Ultra 10 models. Despite being aimed at the lower-cost end of the market, it maintained Sun's reputation for reliability and high build quality, making it popular in academic institutions, design labs, and software development environments.

Today, the Sun Blade 150 stands as an example of early 2000s UNIX workstation design, showcasing Sun Microsystems' engineering excellence before the rise of commodity x86-based workstations.

Manufacturer: Sun
Date: 4th January 2005

This exhibit has a reference ID of CH76386. Please quote this reference ID in any communication with the Centre for Computing History.

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