Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!snll-arpagw!paolucci
From: paolucci@snll-arpagw.UUCP (Sam Paolucci)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: AM(iga un)IX
Message-ID: <74@snll-arpagw.UUCP>
Date: 19 Mar 89 00:36:17 GMT
References: <72@snll-arpagw.UUCP> <6330@cbmvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: paolucci@snll-arpagw.UUCP (Sam Paolucci)
Organization: Sandia National Labs, Livermore, CA
Lines: 51

In article <6330@cbmvax.UUCP> ditto@cbmvax.UUCP (Michael "Ford" Ditto) writes:
->In article <72@snll-arpagw.UUCP> paolucci@snll-arpagw.UUCP (Sam Paolucci) writes:
->>1) When AMIX will be available, would an ethernet card be included or
->>   available from Commodore at possibly additional cost, or is the Amiga
->>   supposed to operate only as an island?
->
->The machine won't come with an Ethernet card, although the OS has support for
->various forms of networking, including AT&T TLI & RFS.  There are third-party
->networking cards that will work when drivers are written for them, and there
->will be support for those third parties to write drivers if we haven't
->already done it.  We are investigating various TCP/IP software packages, and
->hope to have full TCP/IP support in the first Amix release.

I have some difficulty with the Ethernet card response.  First, let me
give you my opinion, and then I'll justify it.  I believe that if
Commodore is going to be committed to the Amiga 2500UX and AMIX, then
it will have to fully support networking.  Given the above, then
Commodore should market an ethernet card.  What would happen, god
forbid, if a third party company which produces such cards goes belly
up?  I know and appreciate the fact that Commodore does not want to
undercut third party developer efforts, but when it comes to a
specific piece of hardware or software which is essential to the
overall usefulness of the product it is essential that Commodore has
some control over.  This was recognized by Apple in coming out with
their Ethernet card even at the expense of potentially undercutting
their third party developers.  If I may make an analogy, fully relying
on third party developers to provide an Ethernet card on a Unix
machine is like relying on third party developers for floppy drives,
and selling an Amiga 2000 without any.

->>2) If such a board will be available, will it be possible to boot the
->>   Amiga via the network and use it as a diskless node (of course making use
->>   of NFS)?
->
->Not in the first release, but probably someday.  Actually that's three
->separate questions, (boot-via-ethernet, diskless node, and NFS support), each
->of which is being investigated, and any of which might appear at first
->without the others.  For example, running without disks we theoretically
->already have with RFS, it's just that you have to be running Unix before you
->can mount any remote file systems.

I hope that some priority is being put in being abe to use the Amiga as a
diskless node.  I think that it would be a very competitive Unix machine.
I also hope that NFS would become available as quickly as possible.

->					-=] Ford [=-
-- 
					-+= SAM =+-
"the best things in life are free"

				ARPA: paolucci@snll-arpagw.llnl.gov