We've almost exhausted the taqueria/stale food metaphors for Jalapeno, Sun's UltraSPARC IIIi processor, but surely one more won't do any harm (you mean more harm - Ed).

The processor was again missing in action when Sun did its top-to-bottom product refresh last week. Since it had only just been found, it needed some reheating.

But we learn that Sun has told customers to expect the processor in two varieties of workstation. A "performance" version will feature dual 1.2Ghz Jalapenos and four independent PCI buses. An el cheapo version will feature a single 1Ghz IIIi an ATA disk rather than a SCSI disk subsystem, and two independent PCI buses. Both systems will sport 1394b Firewire, USB 2.0, and Gigabit Ethernet.

Don't expect a Jalapeno blade until next year.

These first products are most likely to appear in Q2, now, with V210 and V240 featuring IIIi too. We don't have the prices - but it's only fair that we leave something for Sun to announce itself. ®

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