MicroVAX-II questions - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

8 Mar 2002

...
  Christopher Smith wrote:

> From: Doc Shipley [mailto:doc@mdrconsult.com]
>   Everything VMS I've looked at says the DEQNA is unsupported in VMS
...
 > >v5.2.  Is that unsupported as in
"don't call DEC/Compaq/HP", or
> unsupported as in "it don't work"?  Am I stuck with NetBSD then?
Does
...
 > anyone know if NBSD will mop-boot over the DEQNA? 
I don't have VMS
...
   older than
6.2. 
ISTR that's correct, and that's unsupported as in "We never could get
it
...
 to work right, so you're on your own..."  The
suggested solution I've 
...
 seen is to replace it with a DELQA board.  :) 
	The warnings about "we'll soon de-support the DEQNA"
	started in release notes round about 1987. It lasted
	for at least another five years.

	Ethernet drivers used to use an interface called FFI
	- allegedly Flaming Fast Interface but that was presumably
	just for management consumption :-)

	Round about V5.4[-x] or V5.5[-x] this interface
	was replaced with a new shinier one (whose
	name I've either forgotten or never knew) and
	at that point the DEQNA was stated to have stopped
	working. I never actually tested this, but the DECnet
	folks (in whose group I was working) told me
	it just plain would not work - by design.

	The DEQNA was DEC's first Qbus ethernet interface
	and was IIRC basically a LANCE chip on a Qbus card, 
	the LANCE chip being essentially a DEUNA-in-a-chip.
	The DEUNA was DEC's first ethernet interface. 
	The DELQA was the result of what they learned
	from that experience. The Turbo-DELQA was a ROM
	upgrade that improved performance further.

	Antonio