smb@ulysses.UUCP (Steven Bellovin) (03/18/85)
We need to buy a few more Ethernet boards for gateway machines, and the choices don't seem too appealing. 3Com boards, aside from their UNIBUS oddities, are no longer made. The Interlan NI1010A is obsolete (and may have been discontinued); besides, I'm reliably informed that bugs on that board prevent it from communicating with some other Ethernet gear we have. I don't know of a 4.2 driver for the new Interlan board; besides, it's new, and hence I don't trust it. The Excelan board seems nice, but it's expensive, it's geared towards putting TCP on-board, and I can't do that with a gateway machine. Besides, the only 4.2 driver I've seen for it doesn't use those features. Ours DEUNAs work well, but they're power hogs, well-suited for making toast while sending packets. Comments or suggestions? It might be better to post any discussion; I know I'm not the only one with these questions. --Steve Bellovin
tcs@usna.UUCP (Terry Slattery <tcs@usna>) (03/19/85)
> The Interlan NI1010A is obsolete > (and may have been discontinued); besides, I'm reliably informed that > bugs on that board prevent it from communicating with some other Ethernet > gear we have. The NI1010 hasn't been discontinued (at least the local sales folks aren't aware of it). Interlan has been bought out by Micom though. It's the obvious choice for a Unibus gateway since you don't want to pay for 'smarts'. I'd talk to Interlan directly about the problems to see if they have fixed them. > The Excelan board seems > nice, but it's expensive, it's geared towards putting TCP on-board, and > I can't do that with a gateway machine. And you really don't want to either. Besides, the EXOS 8010 software isn't capable of just gateway operation. > Besides, the only 4.2 driver I've seen for it doesn't use those features. Correct. The EXOS 8010 code is 4.1a. I'd rather have 4.2. -tcs Terry Slattery U.S. Naval Academy 301-267-4413 ARPA: tcs@brl-bmd UUCP: decvax!brl-bmd!usna!tcs