Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!zardoz!neil
From: neil@cpd.com (Neil Gorsuch)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: uucp over terminal server
Message-ID: <1989Nov20.083637.15003@cpd.com>
Date: 20 Nov 89 08:36:37 GMT
References: <1243@lemuria.UUCP>
Sender: sales@uninet.cpd.com
Reply-To: neil@uninet.UUCP (Neil Gorsuch)
Organization: Custom Product Design, Inc., Santa Ana, CA, USA
Lines: 39

In article <1243@lemuria.UUCP> darryl@lemuria.UUCP (Darryl P. Wagoner) writes:
>I am looking to put together a uucp site and would like to use a 
>SPARCstation 330 as the system.  But the 330 doesn't seem to support
>the ALM-2, so I thought about using an ethernet terminal server.
>Does anyone know how well a terminal server will work for uucp traffic?
>Most of the traffic will be at 2400 baud or less and very little
>real user dial in.

First, let me mention my bias on this subject, since we just released
the product that I am about to mention.  Why not use a desktop
Sparcstation, and put more serial ports on it using the standard tty
driver already supplied?  Sounds impossible, you say 8-) ?  Aside from
a card cage, there isn't much difference between a desktop
Sparcstation and a Sparcstation 330.  We are now selling serial and
parallel ports on the SCSI bus, in groups of 8 serial and 1 parallel
port per "box" (each box uses 1 SCSI address).  All the modem control
signals are supported on every serial port.  The desktop sparcstation
is much cheaper, enough cheaper that if you want more MIPS, just add 1
or 2 more as diskless clients of the first.  You'll beat the server
configuration on MIPS and $s that way.  The desktops can have up to 64
Mbytes each of memory, if that's a worry, and you can put 10.5 mS
average seek time disks on the SCSI bus.  Using the SCSI bus for the
serial ports is nice because there is much more bandwidth on the SCSI
bus than the ethernet (5 Mbytes/S as opposed to 10 Mbits/S).  There is
much more serial throughput available in our box than you need in the
application you described.  The input response is excellent, almost
like having ALMs, certainly more than adequate for uucp traffic.  If
you're stuck on buying an expensive card cage, put in a SCSI interface
and add a few of our boxes, and you'll still have better performance
for lower $'s than thernet serial boxes.  You won't quite approach ALM
performance, but the difference is very small and the last time I
looked, ALM-2 prices were much higher than the $'s for our boxes.  For
more information, contact me by email or call (800)433-6784.

--
Neil Gorsuch        INTERNET: neil@cpd.com          UUCP: uunet!zardoz!neil
MAIL: 1209 E. Warner, Santa Ana, CA, USA, 92705     PHONE: +1 714 546 1100
Uninet, a division of Custom Product Design, Inc.   FAX: +1 714 546 3726
AKA: root, security-request, uuasc-request, postmaster, usenet, news