i860: Re: modern stuff

[Paul Berger]

The machine type was 6611 and there where three model, the smallest was 
based on a 7011 the mid size one was based on a 7012 and the largest was 
based on a 7013.

The base card is an Artic 960 card which is just a processor card with 
some memory that gets an application loaded on the fly.  The top 
interface card has a lot to do with determining what the function of the 
card sandwich is, there should be a X-Y type code on the back of the 
card that would define the interface.  They where used for all kinds of 
things like Synchronous communications, X25 and network accelerators.  
Some of the interfaces cards used in the 6611 where unique to it and 
never made it to the "standard" RS/6000 line.  There was also a PCI 
version of the Artic 960 but by the time it came along the 6611 was long 
gone.

Paul.


On 2018-11-01 1:15 PM, William Donzelli via cctalk wrote:
>> So, what is this i960-based card for?
> They were the routers. At the core nodes of the network, there would
> be a big RS/6000s (very early POWER1 types) that would each do about
> 4-5 high speed interfaces (FDDI, HSSI, and 10base2). Each interface
> was one of these cards, so each of the big RS/6000s would have about
> 4-5 of these cards.
>
> IBM tried to commercialize the design, but it was doomed - the routing
> engines were very fast, but the internet quickly outgrew the
> architecture of the engines, and they apparently needed a complete
> redesign to compete. IBM did release very few of these RS/6000s to the
> public (I think RS/6000-320Hs with a fancy tag - machine type 6767?).
> I have only seen one of these routers in the wild, but most of the
> real NSFnet ones (I was decommissioning them, one time with a Sawzall
> because of some live tangled cables).
>
>> Could it be related to what you
>> say in your post?
>>
>> https://imgur.com/NIvQPBv
> Possibly related, but that card is not one of the NSFnet ones.
>
> --
> Will