*BSD News Article 39097


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From: hpeyerl@sidney.novatel.ca (Herb Peyerl)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom.tech,comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: Re: ISA/PCI sync serial cards, with bsd drivers?
Followup-To: comp.dcom.telecom.tech,comp.os.386bsd.questions
Date: 7 Dec 1994 15:10:19 GMT
Organization: NovAtel Communications Ltd.
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Thor Lancelot Simon (tls@cloud9.net) wrote:
: I'm looking for an ISA or PCI-bus sync serial card capable of at least
: T1 speed, suitable for installing in a 386-based PC to make a cheap router.
: I know that a number of people manufacture these, but don't remember any of
: the names, or any of the places I saw them advertised.  I also seem to remember
: that at least one outfit (in Germany?) used to sell such a card, with *BSD
: drivers available for free.

err; I don't have an address but a friend bought a Riscom/N2 board and
is using it with BSDI 1.1 or some such... I looked at the driver source and it
doesn't seem like a completely retarded card or anything... There are a
couple of problems with a NetBSD (or FreeBSD) implementation in that our PPP's
are significantly different from BSDI's ppp, and of course the copyright on
the driver as distributed by Riscom is the BSDI copyright.  There were 
rumors that someone was redoing some of the pppd stuff to make it more
amenable to this sort of thing but I don't actually know the status on it.

Riscom is reportedly working on a firmware upgrade to do Frame Relay
but I've heard no news on this and my friend is getting pretty frustrated
with using a '386 as a router and is going to buy a real router. (His
frustration stems from his hardware and not the Riscom or the OS).

I have no affiliation with Riscom.  I'm just an acquaintance of a customer
reporting what I've seen.