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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!eagle!mhuxl!ihnp4!cbosgd!mark
From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton)
Newsgroups: net.lan
Subject: Re: Looking for comments on 3COM - (nf)
Message-ID: <1221@cbosgd.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 4-Apr-84 21:19:24 EST
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.1221
Posted: Wed Apr  4 21:19:24 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Apr-84 00:41:28 EST
References: <145@haddock.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus
Lines: 10

According to the Berkeley document reviewing hardware, the 3Com hardware
is well suited for a single user machine like a PC or small 11.  It makes
the processor do a lot of work (checking for collisions, checking to see
if this packet is for me, etc) that could be done in hardware.  This does
not matter on a single user machine, but on a multi user machine it can
hurt performance.  For a VAX I would want a different board, and I haven't
seen the ideal board yet (but I have high hopes for the Excelan board that's
under development).  In all fairness, Berkeley's comments referred to the
3Com Unibus board, not their PC bus product, but except for the PC product
being DMA (as I gather from the previous article) they are probably similar.