[rescue] SBUS Efficient Networks Inc fiber network adapter on a Sparcstation 4

[Skeezics Boondoggle]

On Tue, 27 Feb 2024 17:58:02, Kenneth Seefried wrote:

[...]
> ATM is one of the very few network technologies I *never* say "I should
> pull together the parts to build a network to play with".
>
>
This made me laugh, because I wholeheartedly agree... having kinda done
exactly that "back in the day."  Not really on purpose, though. :-)

A couple of decades ago (ouch) a friend gave me a pile of old ATM gear that
was being decommissioned from a lab at the grad school where we worked.
They'd done a bunch of research on streaming video (late '90s/early '00s)
and QoS atop IPv4 and ATM (probably LANE, can't recall the details now).  I
picked up a couple of Fore Systems switches and several Fore Sbus and EISA
cards.  (They'd been using HP9000/700 series with ATM and cool Parallax
XV700 video overlay cards for their testing -- naturally I snagged a 735
and the 755 as well!)

I was surprised to learn that the ForeRunner ASX200 is actually a small
rack-mountable 3-ish slot VME cage with a SPARCengine as the management
card! The internal disk drive (!!) in one of the ForeRunners was bad, so I
rebuilt it (sanely -- Fore's default installation was bonkers) and still
have some transcripts:

[...]
ok banner
SPARC CPU-3CE, No Keyboard
ROM Rev. 2.10.1, 16 MB memory installed, Serial #764843.
Ethernet address 8:0:20:b:ab:ab, Host ID: 800babab.

ok boot disk
Boot device: /iommu/sbus/espdma at 4,8400000/esp at 4,8800000/sd at 3,0   File and
args:
root on /iommu at 0,10000000/sbus at 0,10001000/espdma at 4,8400000/esp at 4
,8800000/sd at 3,0:
a fstype 4.2
Boot: vmunix
Size: 1933312+470824+761352 bytes
PAC ENABLED
SunOS Release 4.1.3F (ASX_200) #740: Tue Jul 7 17:16:14 GMT-0400 1998
Copyright (c) 1983-1992, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
cpu = SPARC,CPU-3CE
mod0 = TI,TMS390S10 (mid = 0)
mem = 16004K (0xfa1000)
avail mem = 11436032
entering uniprocessor mode
Ethernet address = 8:0:20:b:ab:ab
espdma0 at SBus slot 4 0x8400000
esp0 at SBus slot 4 0x8800000 pri 4 (onboard)
sd0 at esp0 target 3 lun 0
sd0: <Quantum GoDrive GLS127S cyl 675 alt 2 hd 9 sec 41>
audio0 at obio 0x300000 pri 13 (sbus level 7)
SUNW,bpp0 at SBus slot 4 0xc800000 pri 3 (sbus level 2)
ledma0 at SBus slot 4 0x8400010
le0 at SBus slot 4 0x8c00000 pri 6 (onboard)
VME0 at SBus slot 0 0xfe00000 and obio 0x380000
  FORCE SPARC CPU-3CE (Rev. 0.3)
  FORCE Solaris 1.1F CPU-3CE VME Driver (nexus & memplus) Version 1.0
  Master Window: 0x10000000-0x1fffffff (a32map=0x1)
  Slave  Window: 0x0-0xfffff (slavemap=0x80)
  A16 Mail Box: 0x0 (mbox=0x0)
  VME Interrupt Level Enable: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,  (intenable=0xfe)
[...]
asx200 login: root
Last login: Fri Sep 10 01:22:10 on ttya
SunOS Release 4.1.3F (ASX_200) #740: Tue Jul 7 17:16:14 GMT-0400 1998
asx200# df
Filesystem            kbytes    used   avail capacity  Mounted on
/dev/sd0a              43958   15241   24322    39%    /
/dev/sd0g              43958   36291    3272    92%    /usr
/dev/sd0f              13783     104   12301     1%    /var
asx200# ifconfig -a
le0: flags=63<UP,BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING>
        inet 192.168.1.199 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
        ether 8:0:20:b:ab:ab
asx0: flags=862<BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING>
        inet 1.1.1.1 netmask ff000000 broadcast 1.255.255.255
        ether 0:0:0:0:0:0
qaa0: flags=60<NOTRAILERS,RUNNING>
        ether 0:0:0:0:0:0
[...]

IIRC, it was basically a stock SunOS 4 install, plus the usual custom
kernel config to add Fore's drivers, startup scripts, and patches; the
utilities were in /atm/bin but there was a menu/shell thing for management
atop the Unix CLI.  I learned enough about it to be dangerous, with an SS20
and the two HPs eventually talking to the switch and making the lights
blink furiously as I pushed some big files around to see how it stacked up
against FDDI or FastEthernet.  Good times.

So for a while in the early Noughties my home network comprised a small
FDDI ring for NFS traffic into my old Netapp F330s and Sun4 servers, the
three aforementioned ATM clients hanging off the ForeRunner, thick-, thin-
and twisted pair 10Mbit Ethernet hubs and switches connecting my older
32-bit NeXT, Sun, Tek, SGI, DEC and PERQ workstations, FastEthernet
backbone tying all that to my Cisco switch cluster for the higher-end
Sparcs and desktop daily drivers, Gigabit Ethernet (fiber and TP) to my
F700 and F800 Netapps and the Ultras, 7Mbit ADSL line to the outside, a
1Mbit Farallon "homeline" Ethernet to my upstairs tenant, and even a UUCP
feed over an old 33.6Kbaud fax modem for a small NNTP feed and to connect
my mom's NeXT to her Postscript service bureau.  I'm sure at one point or
another I employed smoke signals, avian carriers, sneaker net with
floppies, a station wagon full of magtapes, two cans with a string... and
of course, throw in an obligatory ISDN jab here too.

It was the "standing up in a canoe" of home networking setups, to be sure.

But if that ATM kit hadn't been free, I definitely would never have gone
out lookin' for it! :-)
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