schultz@mmm.UUCP (John C Schultz) (07/28/89)
In article <20@me.chalmers.se> ksla@me.chalmers.se (ksla@gamma.me.chalmers.se) writes: >BTW: >The internet support package sounds very interesting. Who's responsible for it? >Microware? I'd like to have a full review of bugs and features, and price. Is >it possible use one's own ethernetboard and devicedriver? Which application >programs are included (ftp, telnet, etc)? We have a couple OS9/68K systems which have the Microware ESP (Ethernet Software Package ?) support for things like ftp and telnet. We are using the ESP package on Mizar 680X0's with the required (I believe) ENP-10 Ethernet controller. Overall the system works well, providing ftp and telnet capability from SUNs or HP workstations. This is particularly nice since we also have the OS9/68K cross development packages on the SUNs and HPs so we can develop code with a reasonable UNIX toolset and then recompile for the OS9 system and download via FTP. (I use -DSUN or -DOS9 depending on which system I am compiling for.) Problems are apparent however. Most of our systems have only 512KB of memory. After the ESP package starts up, we have a whopping 20-50KB left over. The FTP and TELNET deamons also do not seem to be killable so reboot time if you want to run an application. More memory would obviously help. We have also experienced some problems with some the ENP-10 board and/or the ESP software working with some Black Box thin-wire to thick-wire Ethernet connectors. Since the ENP-10 is only thick-wire and our local Ethernet is thin-wire, we need several such convertor boxes. I have not fully debugged this as yet. Throughput is 5 KB/sec for reading and about 2 KB/sec writing to the hard disk. I think this is more an indictment of the Mizar 7400 disk controller and Seagate disks than the ENP-10/ESP combination however. In general I like the package and it is reliable, at least in the lab.-- john c. schultz schultz@3M.Com ..!uiucuxc!mmm!schultz (612) 733-4047 3M Center, Bldg 518-1-1, St. Paul, MN 55144-1000 The opinions expressed herein are, as always, my own and not 3M's.