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Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Subject: Re: Excelan Ethernet board on Sun?
Message-ID: <7360@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 30-Nov-86 00:25:31 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.7360
Posted: Sun Nov 30 00:25:31 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 30-Nov-86 00:25:31 EST
References: <7355@utzoo.UUCP>, <9731@sun.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 23

> All Sun-3 models except the 3/5x use the Intel 82586 Ethernet chip. The 3/5x
> uses the AMD 7990 lance chip. Both of these are "smart"...

These chips are "smart" only in comparison to the "dumb" ones; they can't do,
say, TCP/IP internally.  The Excelan board can.

> ...and being located
> on the CPU board have a speed advantage over external cards.

The discussion is about add-on controllers, however.  The on-board controller
on our 3/180S is committed to an internal, secure Ethernet with all nodes
under our control.  The application under consideration is an Ethernet linking
us to the outside world.  We consider it unacceptable for packets from the
the former, including things like private data and unencrypted passwords,
to go out on the latter.  So we need two controllers.

I should add that one speculation in my original note was wrong:  the Sun
add-on controller once was the 3Com one, but it's now a Sun-built 82586
board presenting an interface very similar to the on-board 82586 (the same
driver serves both, I am told).
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry