Computer Design & Automation (CDA), Simpact, EXCLAN

[Josh Dersch]

On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 10:26 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:

> EXCELAN made VME, Multibus, QBus and Unibus Intelligent Ethernet cards
> that put the IP stack on board running from an 80186. Obviously, didn't
> keep up with changing standards. It also had the problem the IP address
> was tied to the Ethernet address.
>

I think this depended on the driver being used -- the EXOS has half a meg
or so of memory that can be used to run code on-board (potentially
offloading protocol overhead), but not everything made use of it.  I have
one in my VAX 11/730 and it works fine under 4.3BSD with no weird
restrictions, but it doesn't make use of the onboard RAM -- it just
controls the board directly.

They seem to be pretty nice boards, but I've only played with the Unibus
version.

- Josh



>
> SGI used them in the 68K IRIS machines. There was a way to get to the
> raw interface, which was the way they used them, or was it Integrated
> Solutions...
>
> There's stuff up on bitsavers about them.
>
>
>
>
> On 8/30/18 1:45 AM, Paul Anderson via cctalk wrote:
> > Does anybody know anything about these companies or their products?
> >
> > If you have any interest in them, please contact me off list.
> >
> > Thanks, Paul
> >
>
>