mike@BRL.ARPA (Mike Muuss) (06/18/87)
We at BRL need to attach some IBM peripherals to a Sun-3 machine. There are several commercial boards to attach IBM channels to the VME bus. If any of you can provide us with leads, or reports on your experiences, or offer drivers :-), that would be most appreciated. Please reply to <ACST@BRL.ARPA>. In particular, we are looking at going this route to make some of our IBM peripherals network-wide assets. For starters, we have one string (1x8) of IBM 3480 cartridge tapes, two strings (2x1) of IBM 3420 reel-to-reel tapes, and a Xerox 6040 laser printer. Assuming that all of that works, we will then also attach a MASSTORE device using the same interface. Once the Sun(s) have direct access to the IBM peripherals, we will layer on top of that a network-transparant remote tape interface, so that all the machines on the network will be able to use the IBM devices. Once that is done, we plan to implement a transparant file migration/ file archiving system, using network access to the MASSTORE to support automatic file reloads, much like "older" operating systems have always provided. BRL will, of course, make this software available to the community when it is operational. Please don't shower us with requests for it, yet. At this point, what we are looking for is advice on the Sun-3 VME bus to IBM Channel interface, which is the building block for this project. (We intend to make it possible for the software to also drive the IBM peripherals via a Hyperchannel A515, but do not at present have a Hyperchannel A515 to work with, so...). Best, -Mike