Sun Microsystems - GoKawiil

Oxide co-founder Bryan Cantrill details what Sun Microsystems got wrong

In a blog post tied to Oxide's OxCon meetup and a nostalgic Sun-themed t-shirt, Oxide CTO Bryan Cantrill argued Sun Microsystems ultimately lost interest in the basic mechanics of running a business. He recounts a 2005 episode where a fast-growing startup running OpenSolaris tried to buy Sun hardware but couldn't get Sun's sales team to respond properly, unlike its smooth experience buying from Dell.

bcantrill.dtrace.org · 2026-09-21

OpenBSD blog revisits SMD disk drives once used in Sun servers

A retrospective on OpenBSD's history blog describes SMD (Storage Module Device) disks, a storage interface standardized in 1982 and revised in 1987, which powered high-capacity systems throughout the 1970s and 1980s. The piece details how Sun Microsystems used SMD disks paired with Xylogics controllers in its early high-end servers and workstations, noting the drives' massive size, weight, and power draw compared to later interfaces like ESDI and SCSI.

miod.online.fr · 2026-09-02