[rescue] sun des chips

[Walter Belgers]

Per Sandstrom wrote:
> Try "man des" and "man 4 des" on a SunOS 4 machine - software support 
> for an AmZ8068 Data Ciphering Processor (DCP), made by AMD, is 
> certainly there. This device was only supported on Sun-3, Sun-3x and 
> Sun-4 systems (the original sun4 architecture).

After some more googling:

- The Sun 3/xx and Sun 3/xxx can have a hardware DES
  encryption/decryption chip. For Sun 3/50 and Sun 3/60, only the chip
  is needed. For the Sun 3/xxx more logic ICs are needed.
- This chip is Zilog Z8068 or Zilog Z9518 or AMD AmZ8068 or AMD Am9510
  Cost was about $50 back then
- A kernel with des support needs to be compiled
- Encryption speed: somewhere between 1.6 and 1.9MByte/sec
- It is highly likely that Sun never sold the DES chip as an option
  (but you can buy one yourself and put it in your box)
- No stories of users having done this and verified it have been found

I am currently trying to get my hands on one or more of these babies :)

Cheers,
Walter.
-- 
Walter Belgers
walter at belgers.com       Get some clue! http://www.ENOCLUE.nl/