Re: Ftoomsh Dial-Ins?

raz@nospam.number5.apana.org.au
Tue, 27 Apr 93 07:22:29 EST

From: Anand Kumria <akumria@nospam.socs.uts.EDU.AU>

> On Tue, 26 Apr 1994 raz@nospam.number5.apana.org.au wrote:
>
> > From: Anand Kumria <akumria@nospam.socs.uts.EDU.AU>
> > >
> > > There are plenty of UNIX type serial port expansion units which
> > > can increase the number of ports upto 32 per card, with 4 cards per
> > > system. Although I'm not sure what the maximum speed per port is (I
> > > believe it is 9600 but it could be 2400). I not quite sure of the
> > > supplier's name, maybe somebody else can help out here.
> >
> > At a guess, you are probably talking about cards for UNIX on
> > a PC! Ftoomsh is not anything even remotely resembling an ISA
> > based PC... with luck our Sun Microsystems rep can help here. :-)
>
>
> No I didn't mean ISA based PCs, I meant there is hardware which connects
> only to UNIX (i wasn't specific, because I don't know the architecture)
> and provides from 0 - 32 ports. If fact, you may remember it the tag line
> was "From 0 to 32 in 9.6 seconds". But the product name escapes me, I
> think i saw it on the back of an issue of APC awhile (like 1-2 years) ago.

No meaning to be overly pedantic (no more than usual, anyway) you
don't connect hardware to UNIX. You connect hardware to
whichever bus you happen to have and then install drivers that
correspond to whichever UNIX and CPU architecture you happen
to have.

Given that there is probably a UNIX port or derivative exists for EVERY
CPU and bus architecture since Z80 (counter examples anyone?) a card
that "connects to UNIX" in the sense that it can be used in any UNIX
box would actually need to be a range of dozens or hundreds of cards
(because there are dozens or hundreds of busses in use in the world)
and it would needs to include hunderds or thousands of drivers (because
when you multiply dozens * no_of_CPU_architectures * no_of_UNIX_ports
you get a STAGGERINGLY huge number.)

I think it is reasonable to state that no such product exists.

You were looking at a particular card for use in a particular
environment. Unless you habitually read magazines for Sun Admins
(are there any?) it is highly unlikely that the product you saw
would work in Ftoomsh.

No flame.