Tadpole-RDI UltraBook IIi

(2001) CPU RAM GFX SFX Sun UltraSPARC IIi @ 400MHz 256MB-1GB 1024x768x24-bit, PGX24 (ATI Rage II+) three hard disk slots if you remove the battery Operating System Support: Solaris 8, 9 or 10 with Tadpole-specific support (primarily), OpenBSD, Linux Actual Serious Content RDI Computer Corporation, based out of Carlsbad, California, was founded in 1989 and was an early manufacturer of SPARC laptops. Their first line of systems were the BriteLites, off-white systems based on the SPARCStation IPX (SAIC, the developer of the SAIC Galaxy 1100 rugged system shown here, even ruggedized one of these as the RSC-1X for the government market). However, the system was not particularly optimized for battery life and RDI migrated to the lower-power microSPARC processors then emerging for the embedded and lower-spec markets. The utilitarian BriteLite case was sexed up for what would become the new PowerLite, using the same basic form factor and layout but evolving it into a sleeker, jet black silhouette with curves. An 85MHz PowerLite was the machine that Tsutomu Shimomura, a computational physicist at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, used to track down famous hacker Kevin Mitnick in 1995. The microSPARC PowerLites were decent sellers but microSPARC started to hit a wall around 125MHz and they never made the jump to SPARC V9; Sun ditched further work in 1994. Now too underpowered to serve as credible workstations, the last of the PowerLites moved to the 170MHz TurboSPARC while a new CPU was awaited. In 1998, RDI was bought by Tadpole Computer, originally from Cambridge, England and subsequently settling in Cupertino. Tadpole was itself an experienced SPARC laptop builder with their 1992 SPARCbook 1, but had also designed the 1994 oddball N40 laptop for IBM under contract (one of the few portable systems powered by the PowerPC 601) and the 1996 ALPHABook 1 with a 233MHz Alpha 21066A CPU. The ALPHAbook and SPARCbook were notable for their shared case. Though Sun had launched the V9 UltraSPARC series in 1995, it was not until after the Tadpole-RDI merger that the new company actually used it. The SPARCbook/ALPHABook and PowerLite cases were merged into a standard chassis used across the Tadpole-RDI line at that time including the PA-RISC PrecisionBook, yielding the 1999 UltraBook based on a 200MHz UltraSPARC. This was upgraded in 2001 to the UltraSPARC IIi starting at 400MHz. They were sold standard with Solaris 8, upgradable to Solaris 10. The common chassis was particularly notable for its expandability and its LCD status display, plus excellent (if somewhat noisy) case cooling. Battery life was best described as weak but sufficient for some circumstances, and if you were willing to give up the battery slot, you could install up to three hard disks and use it as a rather functional portable server. These slots used 2.5" SCSI drives which were so hard to source that Tadpole-RDI later supplied regular 2.5" IDE drives with a SCSI-to-IDE bridge. However, although the power supply the UltraBook used was a standard part (I'm actually using a Targus off-the-shelf supply with mine), the breakout cable for the rear port was not, meaning systems you find today may not have it (thus no serial or parallel ports). The keyboard also curiously lacked a numeric keypad or even key combinations to send those codes. The UltraBook line was replaced by the SPARCle (and its upgraded relative, the Viper) in 2003. Tadpole was itself bought out by General Dynamics in 2005 and merged with another General Dynamics acquisition, Itronix, another rugged systems manufacturer. Although support for the Tadpole machines continued for a few years afterwards, in 2013 the Itronix division finally closed its doors and thus spelled the end of both Tadpole and RDI. Because Solaris 11 ends support for the UltraSparc II, III and IV, the machines cannot be upgraded past Solaris 10, but they will run OpenBSD and Linux just dandy.

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