cak@CS-Arthur (Christopher A Kent) (08/23/84)
Does anyone know of, or better, have experience with, a 10Mb ether interface for HP-IB? We have a bunch of HP 9836s that we'd like to get on our local ether. Thanks, chris
berry@zinfandel.UUCP (Berry Kercheval) (08/24/84)
Gee, Chris, I have good news and bad news. Our friendly HP rep came by Wednesday to lay their new products, "We really want your business" rap on us. I have in front of me a 3-inch binder chock full of the latest HP marketing brochures. Now I know they told me they had Ethernet for the 9000, let me just find the right poop-sheet... Ah, here it is. It's called a LAN unit, and interfaces to the HP-IB port on your 9000. LAN Unit 2285A $5035 Software Opt 022 N/C with above Xcvr Cable 1150-1628 Ethernet cable 92179 Etc. The good news is they use the TCP/IP protocols. The bad news is 'It probably isn't compatible with what you are running.' We have 3-com and Excelan boards and run 4.2/SUN, Excelan EXOS and 3-com UNET. All talk to each other with varying degrees of wonderfulness. The HP rep told us their TCP would not talk to ours. FLAME WHY THE H**L would they BOTHER to implement TCP/IP and NOT make it compatible with other implementations? ELAMF When I asked the HP rep the above question, he said "Uh, we've had a lot of people ask that question." -- Berry Kercheval Zehntel Inc. (ihnp4!zehntel!zinfandel!berry) (415)932-6900
skip@gatech.UUCP (08/26/84)
<>
Ungermann-Bass makes and HP-IB interface board for their lan, but I
don't have any experience with it to recommend for/against it.
--
from the DMZ of Skip Addison
The Office of Telecommunications and Networking
Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
CSNet: Skip @ GATech ARPA: Skip.GATech @ CSNet-Relay
uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,rlgvax,sb1,unmvax,ut-ngp,ut-sally}!gatech!skipsunny@sun.uucp (Sunny Kirsten) (08/27/84)
HPIB ETHER
Xebec makes a controller for Ethernet which works from HPIB.
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{ucbvax|decvax|ihnp4}!sun!sunny (Sunny Kirsten of Sun Microsystems)roald@kvvax4.UUCP (Roald Adolfsen) (08/29/84)
<For line eaters>
We have experience with using the Ungermann-Bass IEEE-488 (HPIB, GPIB)
interface to the 10 Mbits Net/One (Ethernet). Using this IEEE-488
interface, one can choose between the Net/One (TM) Datagram Interface
and the Net/One Ethernet Data Link Interface, both of them makes it
possible to transmit Ethernet datagrams from an HP-IB device to any
other Ethernet or Net/One device attached to the network.
As far as I know, there is some limitations (you have to check them):
a. The aggregate throughput of the interface is around 500 kbits/s
using DMA (this interface uses DMA in the NIU (TM), and we have
used a DMA-based controller to a Norsk Data ND-100 minicomputer)
b. There should be only one other device except for the NIU on the
HP-IB bus. This user device should be the bus 'controller'.
c. Using the Net/One datagram interface, one can only talk to other
Ether-devices also using the same datagram interface. This
(software) interface is available for various hardware interfaces,
for example 32-bits parallell interface (can be connected to
DEC DR11-W interface), RS-232-C async serial interface and 8 bits
parallell interface.
d. Using the Net/One Ethernet Data Link Interface, one can exchange
Ethernet datagrams with any Ethernet device, but one cannot talk
to these accross Net/One Local- or Remote Bridges. These bridges
require that you use the Net/One datagram interface.
The experience with the IEEE-488 interface and the 32-bits parallell
interface on Net/One Datagram interface is good (at least for software
releases later than 11.0 of the Net/One OPS). Datagrams are at least
transferred correctly between equal types of interfaces (we have not
tried other combinations yet). Both broadcasting, multicasting and
absolute addressed datagrams are handled correctly by the NIU (Network
Interface Unit) - into which the Net/One IEEE-488 interface fits.
BTW - The difference between the Net/One Datagram interface and the
Net/One Ethernet Data Link interface is the Ethernet addresses is 6 bytes
each, Net/One addresses are 10 bytes each (6 bytes + 4 bytes Network-id)
In addition, the Net/One datagram interface provides a 16 bits IP-type
field for each of the source and destination processes (of which some
of the ranges are reserved for internal Net/One usage), while the
Ethernet Data link interface provides one 8-bits type-field for each.
Further, datagrams transmitted using the Net/One Datagram Interface
can have a length in the range 0..600 bytes, while Ethernet datagrams
can have a length in the range 46..1500 bytes (I'm talking about the
user data field).
Roald Adolfsen {decvax,philabs}!mcvax!kvport!kvvax4!roald
A/S Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk, Dept CTG4, PO Box 25, N-3601 Kongsberg, Norway
Tel. (+473) 738556 Tlx. 71491 vaapn n
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Roald Adolfsen {decvax,philabs}!mcvax!kvport!kvvax4!roald
A/S Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk, Dept CTG4, PO Box 25, N-3601 Kongsberg, Norway
Tel. (+473) 738556 Tlx. 71491 vaapn ncak@CS-Arthur (Christopher A Kent) (08/30/84)
Berry, If it doesn't speak to other TCPs, IT ISN'T TCP! And HP has no right to call it that. When you say 9000 series, do you mean the expensive multi-processor Unix workstations, or the 68000-based 98xx series? (We have the latter.) chris