*BSD News Article 29843


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From: terry@cs.weber.edu (Terry Lambert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.networking,comp.os.386bsd.development
Subject: Re: Excelan 82586-based ethernet card
Date: 27 Apr 1994 05:40:00 GMT
Organization: Weber State University, Ogden, UT
Lines: 47
Message-ID: <2pktrg$fvp@u.cc.utah.edu>
References: <1994Apr23.132033.3744@fasterix.frmug.fr.net> <1994Apr24.013323.3850@bnr.ca>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.weber.edu
Keywords: Excelan, 82586, I/O address, FreeBSD

In article <1994Apr24.013323.3850@bnr.ca> devouges@bnr.ca (Gary Devouges) writes:
[ ... Excellan ethernet cards -- from the decription EXOS 205T's ... ]

]   I have a few of those cards.... I have not been able to find any
]kind of driver for modern day systems.   These things, along with the
]software, cost us about 1200 to 1400 dollars in 1987 dollars.  We can
]get better cards for less than 100$.
]
]   I tried to use one with an MS-DOS system lately, with their
]software, and it woks ok,  but the card gets pretty hot.... don't want
]that kind of stuff in my home PC.....
]
]   If you really-reallly-really-really want to make this animal work,
]I can probably find enough info for you to be able to write a driver
]for it.... but keep in mind the cost of modern day cards and is it
]worhthwhile to try it !

This are actually real, real neat cards.

First, they can do bus-mastering DMA, which means you don't have to deal
with making your main processer puch the bits.

Second, and most importantly, you can download a full TCP/IP stack to
them; in fact, I had a DECNet stack for one of these puppies under ISC
UNIX, at one time.

Third, if you are a DOS weenie, you can have TCP/IP and other nifty
things without paying hardly *anything* in the way of system memory
to get them.

Finally, with the stack (or pieces of it) on the card, the card *does not
cause bus interrupts unless the packets are actually for you*.  This is
a *wonderful* feature!

All in all, I used to love these and the old Ungerman Bass cards Intel
used to OEM for OpenNet (they also had the stack downloaded to them).

If you can either get the SCO/ISC download images to work for you, or
you can weasel the source out of the curret owners, then this would
be a nifty card to have!


					Terry Lambert
					terry@cs.weber.edu
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.