10 Apr
1998
10 Apr
'98
2:44 p.m.
I seem to remember early Ethernet interface VAX
quad cards
being around 1.5Mbps... not sure if it was think ether, vampire
tap stuff... This would have been before ethernet was turned
into a 'standard.' One guy I know has one of these hanging
That is a DMC-11. It was an early networking card before Ethernet. It
was point to point, 4 wire coax, synchronous serial at something around
1.5Mbps. The DMC-11 had an onboard bit slice processor (might have been
a Signetics 8X305, not sure) to handle the packet assembly/disassembly.
BTW the KMC-11 was a generic DMC-11 that was user programmable, if you
wanted to roll your own protocols. I used a pair of DMC-11s in 1977 to
network two PDP-11/34s with an early version of DECnet. I don't recall
that DEC had any multi-drop type network interface at that time, except
maybe for X.25 PADs.