IBM PC Connecting to DECNET

[Warner Losh]

On Wed, Jun 1, 2022 at 7:51 AM Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net> wrote:

>
>
> > On Jun 1, 2022, at 5:53 AM, Warner Losh via cctech <
> cctech at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> >
> > ...
> > I believe the DEPCA was based on the venerable
> > SONIC chipset, but it may have been the LANCE. It wasn't NE-2000
> compatible
> > (that came later) :).
>
> LANCE seems plausible, or perhaps one of the later chips designed by DEC
> Jerusalem (SGEC etc.).  What's a SONIC?
>

SONIC was NatSemi part that a lot of workstations of the early 90s used. It
does post-date LANCE by a few years.


> The non-LANCE non-DEC Ethernets I remember are in the DEUNA (no idea
> what), QNA (Fujitsu???) and CNA (Intel 82586, *groan*).  The LANCE was
> designed well, with a fair amount of DEC input, and the subsequent
> internally produced chips were constructed along similar lines.  Once DEC
> learned  how to make them at not quite insane cost, they became a very good
> choice and were generally used in DEC products.
>

The LANCE and its children were nice chips.

There's several DEPCAs for 8-bit ISA on ebay for about $50 (and a couple
for a lot more), and as others have pointed out it is a variation of the
Am7990.

Warner