i860: Re: modern stuff

[William Donzelli]

OK, I assumed the 6611s used the NSFnet type cards. Artic960s are
different animals - but probably very similar in idea.

My memory is hazy, but I think the NSFnet cards were referred to as Hawthornes.

Somewhere around here I have one of the really early 386 based routing
cards - a weird double height Microchannel card (the RS/6000s were
RPQ'd with extra tall chassis to accommodate them).

Anyway, I would like to get a 6611, but I do not think very many were
made at all.

--
Will
On Thu, Nov 1, 2018 at 6:19 PM Paul Berger via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
> 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
>