27 Jun
2006
27 Jun
'06
3:34 p.m.
Greetings!
those cards were also used in some versions of sni
rm200 workstations
(with ISA-bus).
They have a 80186 CPU some RAM absolutely no ROM.
They also have a tricky bootstrap.
The 80186 is held in reset state.
The host writes an first stage boot loader to the dual ported RAM and
releases the 80186.
Then the second stage boot loader is transfered with some handshake.
This appears to mimic the design of the Opus PM -- except, in that
case, it is the "PC" holding the 32032 CPU in reset while it
loads the PM's RAM with the bootstrap loader.
Amusing to think of such a system running... the CPU in the
PC, the CPU on the PM and the CPU on the NIC. Sheesh! :>
Then the firmware is downloaded into the RAM and
depending on this
firmware the card
can handle some of the protocol layers to take some IO load of the host
CPU.
Yes, the Opus documentation mentions that the slushware that
comes (came?) with the EXOS card was NOT supposed to be used.
Apparently they have their own code for it.
There were also SCPs (Siemens Communication Processor
as they are called
in the rm world)
for token ring and/or other host bus systems like multibus (in the rm400
/ rm600).
I once had 5 exos205 and was trying to make a linux driver for them,
but lack of spare time and too much sun equipment - so I gave them to a
colleague.
Ah. I can understand the "lack of spare time" -- though hard to
imagine "too much sun equipment"! ;-)
There exists (existed) a paket driver for msdos.
The ethernet chip is an (IIRC) intel 82586.
I never found much information about those cards.
So, that suggests that they are probably poorly supported...
which would imply that they have probably faded away into
bit-oblivion. Or, if still available, probably aren't
worth much (in light of faster, cheaper cards).
Thanks!
--don