22 Nov
2005
22 Nov
'05
9:21 p.m.
On 11/22/2005 01:00 PM, cctech-request at classiccmp.org wrote:
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 23:07:36 +0000
From: Adrian Graham <witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Need recommendations on a terminal server setup
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <BFA6B238.C3D%witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
On 20/11/05 14:44, "Gil Carrick" <gilcarrick at comcast.net> wrote:
The first DEC manufactured Ethernet card for the PC bus was the ISA DEPCA.
It was based on the AMD Lance design that was implemented in the
VAXmate (the first DEC PC that was somewhat IBM PC compatible)
DECnet-DOS was developed and released on Rainbows and IBM XT/AT
compatibles before PATHworks.
It supported third party Ethernet adapters (like the sucky 3Com
3C501, and an Interlan model) via a proprietary driver interface.
When Microsoft got the NDIS driver standard going, we migrated to that.
The DEPCA did not have "DECnet" in it. Though it might have had a
boot ROM that could support MOP downline load. It did have a unique
memory mapped architecture where the buffer pool on the card could be
directly accessed by the network stack. Our stack avoided buffer
copies using this feature.
By the way PATHWORKS for Windows V3.1 and Windows for Workgroups
supported DECnet, TCP/IP, NetWare and NetBEUI, mix and match, without
rebooting.
Dave.
I can't find many references to it, but here
are a couple:
http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Brochure/Overview/PCTelnet.overvie
w.html
http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~rikblok/TipsnTricks/win98.html
The lack of references make me think that these people are just being
imprecise. There are also references to "DECNet Adapter" but they are
talking about a software adapter.
Hmm.... The 2nd one is obviously a mistake since win98 has detected the card
as a PCI based DEC 21040-powered card like the venerable DE500, the first
one is talking about an ISA card and I don't know of any ISA cards that DEC
did, though obviously that doesn't mean they didn't exist :)
The first card I'm aware of is the DE100 which was an AUI/BNC switchable
EISA card. Also for the first one, if it WAS a DECnet card you certainly
wouldn't have been able to run TELNET over it and I didn't think DECnet had
ever been ported to the PC architecture until DEC themselves did a DECnet
stack as part of Pathworks/PCSA in the 80s.
Cheers
A