WITLICKI@WILLIAMS.BITNET.UUCP (12/08/86)
I've heard a rumor that Kinetics is supposed to announce a SCSI to Ethernet interface for the Mac this month. Does anyone have any info about this? How much will it cost? When do we see NFS for the Mac? -- Randy
tim@lll-crg.ARPA@hoptoad.UUCP (12/09/86)
Kinetics announced in their last catalog that they would have a
SCSI-Ethernet card in their next catalog; I don't know what the scheduling
is for that, but I'm looking forward to it. I have been writing my IP to
support plug-in network modules, and I hope to write an Ethernet module as
soon as the boards are available and make it part of the standard IP
distribution. The TOPS distributed inter-OS file system is being ported to
run on top of a TCP transport layer in order to make an Ethernet TOPS
straightforward. This will also help move TOPS onto other transport layers,
the current ATP protocol being fairly non-standard.
I know Tim McCreery doesn't like to toot his own horn, but I would like to
see a brief description of this important product. If Ralph feels the same
way, how about it?
A Mac NFS could also be implemented on top of my (or another protocol-format
rather than linked-library) UDP, but NFS was developed on minicomputers and
is a bit much for Macs and PCs to handle. PC-NFS is a client only, making
direct PC-to-PC connection impossible. The same would apply to a 512K Mac,
which has even less RAM to spare than a 640K PC. TOPS fits on either of
these machines comfortably, while providing the same functionality and UNIX
and (soon) VMS connections. The chief advantage of NFS at this point is
that it runs on Ethernet rather than Appletalk.
--
Tim Maroney, Electronic Village Idiot
{ihnp4,sun,well,ptsfa,lll-crg,frog}!hoptoad!tim (uucp)
hoptoad!tim@lll-crg (arpa)olson@TCGOULD.TN.CORNELL.EDU.UUCP (12/10/86)
In article <8612092027.AA04474@hoptoad.uucp> tim@lll-crg.ARPA@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) writes: >Kinetics announced in their last catalog that they would have a >SCSI-Ethernet card in their next catalog; I don't know what the scheduling > >A Mac NFS could also be implemented on top of my (or another protocol-format >rather than linked-library) UDP, but NFS was developed on minicomputers and >is a bit much for Macs and PCs to handle. PC-NFS is a client only, making >-- >Tim Maroney, Electronic Village Idiot >{ihnp4,sun,well,ptsfa,lll-crg,frog}!hoptoad!tim (uucp) >hoptoad!tim@lll-crg (arpa) From a user's point of view... The physics department that I'm currently at would love to have NFS for the Mac even if it was only as a client. (IE we'd pay a reasonable price for it.) We have a Vax11/750, ~10Macs, and will shortly have 9 Suns, with more to come in the next year or so. We very much want them to be able to work together. At very least we'd like to be able to transparently access the Sun hard discs from the Mac. (That is the Mac can store its files on the Sun, not that the Mac be able to always read files generated by the sun.) We want to use the Macs as terminal as well as on there own. Is anyone else out there in the same situation? How are yougoing about integrating your computers into one heterogeneous whole? For the Venders out there, can you help us, at a reasonable price? (Or do I have to stop doing physics for a while and write this stuff to my self) Todd Olson ARPA: olson@lasspvax -- or -- olson%lasspvax.tn.cornell.edu@cu-arpa UUCP: {ihnp4,allegra,...}!cornell!lasspvax!olson US Mail: Dept Physics, Clark Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853-2501