OMRON
Omron is a well known medical hardware manufacturer. But, outside Japan, few
people know that, in the late '80s, Omron was an active player on the Unix
workstation market.
Called `Luna' as an opponent to Sun, Omron workstations were initially built around Motorola 68000 family processors (68020, 68030, 68040). Then, later, their design evolved to sport up to four Motorola 88100 processors, under the `Luna-88k' name.
These Luna-88k systems were heavily used at the Carnegie Mellon University, to develop CMU Mach on affordable multiprocessor systems. However, Omron did not sell much workstations outside Japan, and these are very rare sights those days.
Called `Luna' as an opponent to Sun, Omron workstations were initially built around Motorola 68000 family processors (68020, 68030, 68040). Then, later, their design evolved to sport up to four Motorola 88100 processors, under the `Luna-88k' name.
These Luna-88k systems were heavily used at the Carnegie Mellon University, to develop CMU Mach on affordable multiprocessor systems. However, Omron did not sell much workstations outside Japan, and these are very rare sights those days.
Historical links
Here are interesting Computer Business Review articles about the Luna-88k:
- Luna-88k announcement
- Omron funding CMU for Mach development
-
After the Luna-88k and the faster Luna-88k 2 systems were introduced, Omron
partnered with Data General, another Motorola 88000 workstation manufacturer, to
design a new machine, using the faster 88110 processor, and initially called
`Luna 2001'. At some point, the name was changed to `Luna 2010'.
Links
- OpenBSD/luna88k
The OpenBSD/luna88k port, for all Luna-88k and Luna-88k 2 systems. - Luna88k resource page
Kenji Aoyama's information page about Luna-88k systems and the OpenBSD/luna88k port, which is his work. - Jeff McMahill's
Luna-88k page
Luna-88k information, from one of the Luna CMU Mach team long ago. - NetBSD/luna68k
The NetBSD/luna68k port, for most 68000-based Luna systems.
Inventory
Here is the current Omron inventory.
-
luna88k
- Luna-88k prototype (marecrisium)