3Bnet questions.

[David Herron, NPR Lover]

[Line eater, line eater, eat me a line! Make me a hack! Oop, I already am one]

We are facing the incipient arrival of a 3Bnet (21 3B2's and a 3B20).
This campus has never seen anything more sophisticated than uucp
through hard wired terminal ports.  (And even that didn't come into
existance until last summer when I put it together).  Our current
hardware is:

	- 1 Vax-11/750 running 4.2BSD.
	- 2 PDP-11/23's (on the old 18-bit Q-bus) running 2.9.
	- 1 PDP-11/44 running 2.9.
	- 1 PDP-11/24 running 2.9.
	- Two Intel 80286 machines that just arrived and have no software
	as yet, though there is a bunch of hardware in each.
	- A Compupro 68K machine that will run Unix once the software
	gets here.
	- A 16032 board that may be made into a machine and run Unix
	someday (if we ever get disk/memory/terminals/etc for it).

We are wanting to know the feasibility of connecting any or all of this
hardware to the 3Bnet.  From reading the 3B documentation I get the
idea that it is ethernet at the connector.  Would DEUNA boards attach
us to this net properly (and appropriate equivalents for the non DEC
hardware)?  What's the difference between 3Bnet and the NSC HYPERchannel?
(The programs for the 3Bnet stuff have the same names as the programs 
for the HYPERchannel stuff in sysIII and sysV.1).

Is my impression that it will be necessary to write a protocol driver
for use under 4.2 correct?

Another consideration is that the University will, sometime during the
next year, be putting in a broadband ethernet to interface all the
machines on campus into one large network.  We have to consider
compatibility with that.  (Sorry, I don't know if they have made any
firm commitments to any particular hardware yet).

Any information will be greatly appreciated.  Especially appreciated
would be pointers on books that cover the subject.  If there is interest
and response, I might be persuaded to summarize to the net.  Ok?
-:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:-
David Herron;  ARPA-> "ukma!david"@ANL-MCS
(Try the arpa address w/ and w/o the quotes, I have had much trouble with both.)

UUCP          -:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:-          (follow one of these routes)

{ucbvax,unmvax,boulder,research} ! {anlams,anl-mcs} -----\  vvvvvvvvvvv
							  >-!ukma!david
   {cbosgd!hasmed,mcvax!qtlon,vax135,mddc} ! qusavx -----/  ^^^^^^^^^^^