I'm delighted to let you know about a superb recent lecture at CHM on one of the most successful RISC microprocessor families in history, the Sun SPARC.

Presented by the Computer History Museum Semiconductor Special Interest Group, with special thanks to Oracle.

This high-powered panel and guests discussed the origins and evolution of the SPARC processor on its 25th anniversary. When a small startup -- Sun Microsystems -- decided to develop their own microprocessor in the mid 1980's, it chose a Reduced Instruction Set Computers (RISC) architecture. The 1987 debut of the Sun-4, the first SPARC based computer, ignited meteoric growth at Sun and ultimately transformed the industry. The panelists discussed the technical and business challenges of this revolutionary path, the risks and rewards of the development of multiple generations of increasingly complex chips, and the critical role of software. The talked about the current state of the market, and speculate on future challenges and opportunities.

Panelists: Sun Microsystems co-founders Bill Joy and Andy Bechtolsheim, Professor David Patterson, SPARC Team members Anant Agrawal and Bernard Lacroute, with Rick Hetherington of Oracle. Moderated by David House.

Special appearances by Mark Hurd--co-president of Oracle, John Fowler Executive VP of Systems at Oracle, Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla, Shigeru Fujii of Fujitsu and Steven Muchnick, SPARC team member. Includes a taped interview with Sun Microsystems co-founder Scott McNealy.

Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3ukXhEaYGI&feature=em-subs_digest

Dag