Need recommendations on a terminal server setup

[Dave Mitton]

On 11/22/2005 01:00 PM, cctech-request at classiccmp.org wrote:
>Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 23:07:36 +0000
>From: Adrian Graham <witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk>
>Subject: Re: Need recommendations on a terminal server setup
>To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
>         <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>Message-ID: <BFA6B238.C3D%witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk>
>Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="US-ASCII"
>
>On 20/11/05 14:44, "Gil Carrick" <gilcarrick at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > I can't find many references to it, but here are a couple:
> >
> > 
> http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Brochure/Overview/PCTelnet.overvie
> > w.html
> >
> > http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~rikblok/TipsnTricks/win98.html
> >
> > The lack of references make me think that these people are just being
> > imprecise. There are also references to "DECNet Adapter" but they are
> > talking about a software adapter.
>
>Hmm.... The 2nd one is obviously a mistake since win98 has detected the card
>as a PCI based DEC 21040-powered card like the venerable DE500, the first
>one is talking about an ISA card and I don't know of any ISA cards that DEC
>did, though obviously that doesn't mean they didn't exist :)
>
>The first card I'm aware of is the DE100 which was an AUI/BNC switchable
>EISA card. Also for the first one, if it WAS a DECnet card you certainly
>wouldn't have been able to run TELNET over it and I didn't think DECnet had
>ever been ported to the PC architecture until DEC themselves did a DECnet
>stack as part of Pathworks/PCSA in the 80s.
>
>Cheers
>
>A

The first DEC manufactured Ethernet card for the PC bus was the ISA DEPCA.
It was based on the AMD Lance design that was implemented in the 
VAXmate (the first DEC PC that was somewhat IBM PC compatible)

DECnet-DOS was developed and released on Rainbows and IBM XT/AT 
compatibles before PATHworks.
It supported third party Ethernet adapters (like the sucky 3Com 
3C501, and an Interlan model) via a proprietary driver interface.
When Microsoft got the NDIS driver standard going, we migrated to that.

The DEPCA did not have "DECnet" in it.  Though it might have had a 
boot ROM that could support MOP downline load.  It did have a unique 
memory mapped architecture where the buffer pool on the card could be 
directly accessed by the network stack.  Our stack avoided buffer 
copies using this feature.

By the way PATHWORKS for Windows V3.1 and Windows for Workgroups 
supported DECnet, TCP/IP, NetWare and NetBEUI, mix and match, without 
rebooting.

Dave.