The Sony NEWS (Network Engineering Workstation) was a series of BSD-based Unix workstations sold during the late 1980s and early 1990s. It originally came equipped with a dual 68030 processor configuration running at 25 MHz, later shifting to the MIPS R3000 and R4000 RISC microprocessors. The first NEWS machine was the NWS-800, which originally appeared in Japan in January 1987 and was conceived as a desktop replacement for the VAX series of minicomputers.
Both 68030 and RISC models shared the same case, which had a large door covering a floppy drive and a 5.25-in expansion bay which could house a SCSI tape or CD-ROM drive. The details of the door were slightly different: two windows for the 68030 models while the RISC ones had a single large window. Also hidden by the cover were a reset button and a series of DIP switches used to configure some bootup parameters.
On the back were 3 expansion slots, one of which normally housing a video card. Underneath those were the connectors for SCSI, network (an AUI connector), serial (CH0, normally used for console, and CH1), parallel, and a keyboard.
External links
- Sony History: NEWS – An Independent Venture
- SONY NEWS Series hardware specifications
- Xi FTP service software repository for NEWS-OS 6.1
- webpage about SONY NeWS 1580
- FAQ on running netbsd on a SONY NeWS 68030-based (news68k) workstation. A version for the RISC version is also available.
- History for the Sony NEWS workstations
- Xi FTP service software repository for NEWS-OS 6.1
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