jack@vu44.UUCP (Jack Jansen) (12/28/84)
A few weeks ago, I asked for information regarding SMD controllers
for a VME bus. First, let me thank everyone who answered, and apologize
for not mentioning their names here, since I dropped some of the header
information on the floor.
Here follows all the information I got. Comments from me are
inside [square brackets].
------------------------------------------------------------------
The VME V/SMD 3200 controller from Interphase Corporation.
Specs:
- Disk Data rates to 24 Mb/S
[Is this mega*bits* or am I so far behind that it seems
too fast??]
- Supports two SMD disk drives
- 8-, 16-, or 32-bit data transfers
- 16-, 24-, 32-bit adressing
- On-board 32 bit ECC
- "Multitasking Architecture" with on-board 68000
- Scatter/Gather commands
- Programmable Interrupt levels (1-7)
- Selectable bus priority (0-3)
- Intelligent caching
- Zero-latency Reads and Writes
[I was also told that this board uses a 12K cache, and that it costs
$2750.]
The latest I have heard is that the controller should be available
in January. The address for Interphase is:
Interphase Corporation
2925 Merrell Road
Dallas, Texas 75229
(214) 350-9000
TELEX #73-2561 (TELESERV)
---------------------------------------------------------
Someone from Performance Technologies told me that they are working
on a VME SMD controller, but it isn't finished yet. Didn't give
any schedule for it. Anyway, here's their address:
.
Performance Technologies, Inc
300 Main Street
East Rochester, New York 14445
(716) 586-6727
----------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Ilieve (dice!peter) wrote :
We started this same search over a year ago. The only one we could find at the
time was by Data Sud, the DSSEHDCONT-1. This is a two board set which goes
into one VME slot and contains its own 68000. We eventually received one in
October 83 but it was a very early version and didn't look too good.
It only supported the CDC Lark drive and it was designed to go into a Versados
system, all the commands were the same as some sort of Motorola disk controller
in Exormacs boxes. As the commands were a copy of something else and were
therefore 'well known' there was no programming manual for it! This lack of
information extended even to what VME address it occupied. We sent it back
as soon as we found the next solution described below.
In fairness to Data Sud we did have a very early board and they might
be much better now.
To backtrack a bit, we were really looking for an SCSI VME controller
to drive the promised SCSI version of the Fujitsu M2322K 168 Mbyte disk and
were only going to use SMD as a temporary fix. So the next thing we found
was the Xebec S1490 SASI to SMD adapter.
[If anyone knows anything about this and similar beasts I would be
happy to hear it]
This is not a VME board but it
allowed us to use a SASI VME board, of which there are several, and when
the SCSI disks arrived we could junk the Xebec boards. They only cost about
250 pounds so we were not too upset at doing this.
We have now been using this VME/SASI/SMD combination for several
months and it works well. Because of this we stopped looking seriously
for SMD controllers.
...
The other source of information is the VMEbus Compatible Products
Directory which you should be able to get a free copy of from Motorola,
Mostek or Signetics. The summer 84 edition, which is the latest I have,
lists SMD controllers by Data Sud, Dy-4 systems, Sigen, Dual Systems, Stollman,
and Wormald. From past experience with this book however, some of these may
not yet be available.
Addresses of companies mentioned:
Data Sud Systems s.a.
22, rue de Claret
Immeuble Edouard VII
BP 1067
34007 Montpellier Cedex
[ This seems to be in France]
Phone (67) 27 32 55 Telex 490425
Dual Systems corp.
2530 San Pablo Avenue
Berkeley
CA 94702
Phone (415) 549-3890
Dy-4 Systems inc
888 Lady Ellen Place
Ottawa
Ontario
Canada K1Z 5M1
Phone (613) 728-3711 Telex 053-4969
Sigen corp.
1800 Wyatt Drive, suite 6
Santa Clara
CA 95054
Phone (408) 988-2527
Stollman & Co GmbH
Bornstrasse 14
2000 Hamburg 13
West Germany
Phone +49 40-44-60-81 Telex 214 049
Wormald Data Systems
Electron House
Mill Street
Slough
Berkshire SL2 5OO
Phone +44 753 71626 Telex 849479
Xebec Systems Inc.
432 Lakeside Drive
Sunnyvale
CA 94086
Phone (408) 735-1340
--
Jack Jansen, {seismo|philabs|decvax}!mcvax!vu44!jack
or ...!vu44!htsa!jack
If *this* is my opinion, I wasn't sober at the time.