phil@amdcad.AMD.COM (Phil Ngai) (05/14/88)
In article <361@lalk.excelan.UUCP> chuck@excelan.UUCP (Chuck Kollars) writes: >Some potential advantages of the Front End Processor architecture: > o reduce host memory requirements If I compare a $200 WD board with a $700 EXOS 205, I'd have to say that's an expensive way to buy memory (not to mention the inherently lower performance of the EXOS's 186 vs my PC's 286). Right now things like PC-NFS don't live in expanded or extended memory but such is certainly possible. > o many simultaneous connections I believe some people have run into a problem with the limited number of sockets available with the EXOS 204. I don't know about the newer board but considering that these people's response was to ditch Excelan and go to Wollongong, I would guess Excelan still only gives you a very small number of sockets on the EXOS 304. I wonder if the VMS people could comment on the usefulness of the 204/304. Do you ever run out of sockets? How reliable is your Excelan hardware? We have a 205 that fails a lot. Takes weeks to repair. And at the price, you can't afford to keep spares around like you can the WD board. I don't have it in for Excelan or anything but the WD board really seems like a better piece of hardware to me. I would love to see an extended discussion of the merits and demerits of both boards. Actually, I hate WD the company. Trying to get technical information out of them is difficult. But a FAST Ethernet card for $200 is worth a lot of trouble. -- Make Japan the 51st state! I speak for myself, not the company. Phil Ngai, {ucbvax,decwrl,allegra}!amdcad!phil or phil@amd.com