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