SUMMARY: PMAD-AA on DEC3000 and DU4.0D anyone ?

From: Thomas Leitner <tom_at_radar.tu-graz.ac.at>
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 11:48:31 +0100 (MET)

Hi,

The answers in a nutshell:

a.) Yes it works
b.) The PMAD-AA has a AUI aka Thickwire aka 10Base5 interface only
    so we need external transceivers for 10Base2.

Thanks to the following people for their fast replies:

        wmills_at_WellsFargo.COM
        Oisin McGuinness <oisin_at_sbcm.com>
        Richard Bemrose <rb237_at_phy.cam.ac.uk>
        Grant Ward <gaward_at_cssip.edu.au>
        Chris Jankowski <chrisj_at_lagoon.meo.dec.com>

Here is my original posting followed by the answers I got.

Thanks again everybody.

Tom
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Thomas Leitner

Hi,

We are in the need of adding an additional Ethernet interface to four old
DEC3000/600 machines. After a short web-search I figured out that a
PMAD-AA is what we want and I already got a reasonable price quotation
from a US dealer.

Before purchasing, though, I just want to make sure that we won't run into
problems with the following configuration:

- DEC 3000/600, latest firmware
- Digital Unix 4.0D, without any patch kit
- PMAD-AA Ethernet card as le1 additionally to the built in
  Ethernet as le0

Is anyone running such a configuration (or a similar one) ?

As an aside, can anyone tell which Ethernet interfaces the PMAD-AA
supports? I mean: AUI or 10base2 or 10base-t or all of them?

Thanks for any informations.

Tom

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>From wmills_at_WellsFargo.COM Wed Mar 10 11:31:49 1999

Works fine....

Make sure to have the network CONNECTED when you are getting the card to
recognize itslef. It wants to be plugged in either to a network device or a
loopback to pass it's diags.

-bill
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From: Oisin McGuinness <oisin_at_sbcm.com>

We have a few of these beasts, and they still work.
Some of our 3000/600's have the PMAD-AA cards; and I am planning
to move some of these cards from even older Ultrix boxes into others.
We mostly use the secondary interfaces for backup etc.

The PMAD-AA is your basic thick wire interface, you will need a transceiver
to connect to a 10baseT network.

The ONLY faster solution is to do FDDI; there are NO (and I checked recently)
100Mbit boards. There are TurboChannel FDDI cards; we once tried them out
on both Ultrix and Digital Unix, but never used them. They are DEFZA-AA
DEC FDDI Controller 700 cards; should show up as PMAF-FA's, see
/sys/data/tc_option_data.c
They may be hard to track down in guaranteed condition; I have two loose
(and two others in machines, cards not in use) whose condition is not
guaranteed, but I might be willing to give them away if you want to play with them.
I think they need a dual attach FDDI ring....

Oisin McGuinness
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Richard Bemrose <rb237_at_phy.cam.ac.uk>

On Tue, 9 Mar 1999, Thomas Leitner wrote:
/snip/
> Is anyone running such a configuration (or a similar one) ?

Sorry, we are not...

> As an aside, can anyone tell which Ethernet interfaces the PMAD-AA
> supports? I mean: AUI or 10base2 or 10base-t or all of them?

But you might find more details of your NIC here:
        http://www.networks.digital.com/dr/npg/

I hope this helps. Good luck!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Grant Ward <gaward_at_cssip.edu.au>

Hi Tom,

> We are in the need of adding an additional Ethernet interface to four old
> DEC3000/600 machines. After a short web-search I figured out that a
> PMAD-AA is what we want and I already got a reasonable price quotation
> from a US dealer.

What sort of price ? What dealer ? I have been trying to track down
one of these for our 3000/700 and Compaq don't seem to be responding
to my request (too hard basket). I currently have a unit on loan from
a friend.

> Before purchasing, though, I just want to make sure that we won't run into
> problems with the following configuration:
>
> - DEC 3000/600, latest firmware
> - Digital Unix 4.0D, without any patch kit
> - PMAD-AA Ethernet card as le1 additionally to the built in
> Ethernet as le0
>
> Is anyone running such a configuration (or a similar one) ?

I have a 3000/700 - it is running 4.0B patch kit 6. Putting the le1
in enabled me to split my network and reduced the traffic back to
workable levels :)

I hope to be embarking on 4.0E this weekend for this machine in case
you're interested.

> As an aside, can anyone tell which Ethernet interfaces the PMAD-AA
> supports? I mean: AUI or 10base2 or 10base-t or all of them?

It has an AUI port only so a transceiver is mandatory in most cases :)

> Thanks for any informations.

Hope that helps.

Grant Ward ( Grant.Ward_at_cssip.edu.au )

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From: Chris Jankowski - mailing lists <chrisj_at_lagoon.meo.dec.com>

Thomas,

That has been done many a time eg. for firewalls.

>From memory the PMAD-AA is AUI + 10base-t, but this is from memory only.

If you do not get answer another way please drop me an email.
I certainly have both the real card and instruction for it buried somewhere
in my office so I can check it for you.

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Chris
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Received on Wed Mar 10 1999 - 10:51:18 NZDT

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