lenny@icus.islp.ny.us (Lenny Tropiano) (09/18/89)
In article <481@glyph.UUCP> ahh@glyph.UUCP (Andy Heffernan) writes: |>In article <958@icus.islp.ny.us> lenny@icus.islp.ny.us (Lenny Tropiano) writes: |>>What he has ... |>> |>> UNIX PC Starlan/Network Access Unit |>> UNIX PC Expansion Box |>> UNIX PC Voice Power Board |>> UNIX PC IRMA Card |>> |> |>Can anyone provide descriptions of what these things are? |>In other words, can anyone answer the question, "Why would |>I want to buy any of this crap?" |> |>The Expansion Box sounds interesting, for instance, but I don't |>want it if it would only be useful as a hamster cage, especially if |>the asking price is $500-$1000 (guess). |> No, the Expansion box cannot double as an hamster cage, toaster oven, shoe box, VCR, disk cabinet, etc.. etc.. etc.. Ok, since a lot of you didn't know what these boards are, I feel I should explain a little what I know. Some of the facts and figures come from a very old sales guide on UNIX pc hardware ... It's not complete, but has some of the information we're looking for. o AT&T UNIX PC Expansion Unit: PEC 37420 This unit can accommodate 5 UNIX PC expansion cards. This product is made up of a bus repeater card, the expansion box, and an interconnecting cable. The unit's repeater card takes up a slot in the UNIX pc which give the entire system a total of 7 expansion slots. The cable length is 5 feet, to alow the user to place the unit on the floor. The expansion unit contains a card cage, power supply, fan, and circuit "backplane". The dimensions of the unit are: depth 17 inches, width 6 inches, and height 10 inches. The expansion box will handle any expansion card for the UNIX pc except for memory cards and EIA/RAM Combo cards (Dual EIA, no RAM is acceptable). There is no software required for this product. o AT&T UNIX PC Voice Power: Provides the capability to run software application packages such as VOICE POWER Electronic Mail and VOICE POWER Answering Machine. It is the underlying support for all UNIX PC Voice Power applications. Prerequisites: minimum 20MB UNIX PC or 3B1 with release 3.0 or later of the system software, one available expansion slot, and 3MB of free disk space. [my comments: the board will allow one to do simple call progress detection on telephone, detect touch tones, ringing, voice, modem tones. The board digitizes audio signals and stores them as a data file on the hard disk. The digitized sound can later be played back through the telephone handset or external source. The board has two audio jacks (audio in, audio out) and two phone jacks (RJ11, line and handset). One could easily write voice applications like AT&T's AUDIX(tm), Voice Mail packages, Answering machine software, etc.]. o AT&T 3270 COAX INTER BRD (IRMA) The IRMATM 3270 emulation package contains a communications board and bundles software. The board connects to a 3274/76 type IBM controller via coax cabling. It will operate with both channels attached and remove (BSC or SNA/SDLC) controllers. The software provides the product diagnostics, 3270 emulation and IBM mainframe file transfer. The bootable diagnostic diskette provides for product checkout independent of the UNIX PC operating system. The product will emulate the IBM 3278, Model 2 and the IBM 3279, Model S2A & S2B terminals and support all the standard features. The color for an IBM 3279 terminal will be handled through screen attributes (e.g., highlighting, bold, etc.) on the monochrome screen. The product will support 3270 attribute and extended attribute (EAB) characters for field oriented screens. The following file transfer packages will be provided: FT/78, IRMAlink FT/TSO, IRMAlink FT/CMS, IRMAlink FT/3270. The IBM mainframe code for running FT/CMS and FT/TSO can be uploaded from the UNIX PC using the FT/78 package. There is no information here provided on the AT&T Starlan boards, but to my knowledge AT&T Starlan is a proprietary network scheme (can be compared to DEC's DECNET). No this is not an Ethernet board, and I've gotten several requests for these which I have no idea where I would get these to be sold. Although if anyone has two they are willing to sell, let me know! :-) I don't believe the Starlan board supports anything like the BSD r* commands (rlogin, rcp, rsh, etc...), TCP/IP or the ftp and telnet commands, what is needed here is an Ethernet board. If anyone has more insight on the Starlan boards, and better yet has had experience with the UNIX pc version, let me know! (via email) Lastly, to answer some reoccuring questions in my past couple of days mail ... Q: What's the status of the SCSI board, and will it run in an expansion box? A: The status of such a board is still unknown. Currently I am not involved with the people from California or 3B Journal who might be working on such a product. Assuming the product meets all the AT&T s4bus specifications, there should be no reason why it couldn't run in the expansion box's slots. Q: Where can I get a DOS-73 board? A: I am using my DOS-73 board, therefore it's not for sale or trade. (sorry) Last I heard Jan Isley (jan@bagend) had a couple of these for sale around ~$350, but I am unsure of his current supply. (Jan you listening?) Q: What's a good price for all this hardware? A: Really since the hardware is obsolete, the machine is obsolete, I cannot give a good value on the hardware. There is no support for it, if it breaks, you're out of luck. I'm working at the details presently as "bargaining agent" for the 3B1 hardware and I will give prices as soon as I can. Q: Could I write a simple Voice Mail package for the Voice Power board using shell scripts? A: Yes, with the Voice Power software an example "hotline" application is given. The application comes in shell script form, "C" form, VDA (Voice Data Access, a high level programming language), and BASIC (eek). The size of the application that will answer the phone, play messages, record messages, change outgoing messages, etc. Is ... -rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 8552 Jun 26 00:42 hotline.bas -rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 5534 Jun 26 00:42 hotline.c -rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 4814 Jun 26 00:42 hotline.sh -rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 1433 Jun 26 00:42 hotline.vda -rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 17881 Jun 26 00:42 hotline_mac.c Thanks, Lenny -- Lenny Tropiano ICUS Software Systems [w] +1 (516) 589-7930 lenny@icus.islp.ny.us Telex; 154232428 ICUS [h] +1 (516) 968-8576 {ames,pacbell,decuac,hombre,talcott,sbcs}!icus!lenny attmail!icus!lenny ICUS Software Systems -- PO Box 1; Islip Terrace, NY 11752