New POWER toys

[William Donzelli]

> I've found all of those cards fairly often on ebay.  FDDI cards go for 
> cheap.  I have loads of them.

Are we talking about the same cards? The ones I am referring to are known
as "F960", "H960", "E386" and so forth. The first letter refers to the
interface (FDDI, HSSI, Ethernet, and so forth) and the number indicates
the processor. A stripped down AIX ran on these cards (yes, AIX on a
80386 - deal with it) to perform the routing. The host RS/6000 basically
just did housekeeping.

The FDDI and HSSI cards (I don't think) ever became a real product, with
less than 300 or so made. The V.35 and Ethernet cards did, and pop up from
time to time (they were used in a specially badged RS/6000-320 called a
<mumble> Network Processor).

William Donzelli
aw288 at osfn.org