Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!umich!terminator!dabo.ifs.umich.edu!rees
From: rees@dabo.ifs.umich.edu (Jim Rees)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: ethernet controller information
Message-ID: <1990Jul9.145308.814@terminator.cc.umich.edu>
Date: 9 Jul 90 14:53:08 GMT
References: <20070618422719@lax.wisc.edu>
Sender: usenet@terminator.cc.umich.edu (usenet news)
Reply-To: rees@citi.umich.edu (Jim Rees)
Organization: University of Michigan IFS Project
Lines: 23

In article <20070618422719@lax.wisc.edu>, SENGER@LAX.WISC.EDU writes:
    I would like to gateway our Apollo token ring to a campus ethernet.
    Our computer center has a variety of spare 3-Com ethernet boards from
    PC's. I would appreciate any information regarding what will work and
    how to do it or whether I need to get an ethernet controller from Apollo.

The ethernet board used in modern Apollos (dn3000 series; I don't know about
the dn10000) are 3-Com 505s.  3-Com makes several different models, and this
is one of the most expensive, because it's got a fair amount of buffering
and compute power on the board.  The ones we use all have either 64k or 128k
of memory.  Any more would be a waste, I think, because we never see
overruns or lost packets.

We get these boards from Apollo for about $680 with educational discount. If
we buy them from a 3-Com distributor they are about $660.

If you buy the board from Apollo, it comes with the ROM necessary to boot
your node over the ethernet.  Without this ROM the board will work fine
after the node is booted.  You just can't do ROM things like dumps and
diskless boots over the ether.

I'll be glad to send the switch settings to anyone who wants to try to make
one of these boards work.