[rescue] u2 drive trays

[Skeezics Boondoggle]

On Mon, 18 Aug 2003, Joshua D. Boyd wrote:

> > The ForeRunners are interesting... basically an OEM Sun VME SBC,
> > *with* a hard drive, that boots SunOS4 and downloads microcode into
> > the Fore ATM switch at boot time, then acts as the management
> > interface for the thing.
> 
> That sounds like it would be a wonderfully fun piece of hardware if it
> would work.

Yeah, but it's still odd to turn on a network switch and hear a hard drive
spin up. :-)  It's basically a small 3 or 4-slot VME chassis in a ~ 3U
rack enclosure.  As I understand the ForeRunner's architecture, the Sun
board just initializes the ATM fabric and says "go!" and the ATM switching
then happens with little or no intervention.  If I had the right software,
however, I could do an ATM->Ethernet bridge ("Because it's there!"), which
does use the SPARC CPU to drive the Ethernet interface and do the routing.  
The ATM LAN emulation stuff makes ATM a little easier to grok for Unix
geeks whelped on Ethernet and FDDI and other non-telcoish network
technologies.


> What is HomePNA?

Basically it's Ethernet over crappy old phone wiring.  I think PNA is the
"Phoneline Network Alliance", the group who set the standards.  Works
kinda like DSL (split frequency so the network doesn't interfere with the
phone).  I've got HomePNA 1.0 adapters (run at 1Mbit, newer ones run at
10Mbits) going up from the basement to the second and third stories, since
that was way easier than trying to route coax or twisted pair down from up
there.

-- Chris