Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 11:25:02 -0500 (CDT) From: Joe Greco <jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com> To: dennis@etinc.com (dennis) Cc: jkh@time.cdrom.com, hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Bragging rights.. Message-ID: <199510191625.LAA28235@brasil.moneng.mei.com> In-Reply-To: <199510191607.MAA27586@etinc.com> from "dennis" at Oct 19, 95 12:07:45 pm
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> >Well, this is half me needing to tell *somebody* and half actually
> >being informative since some of the people on this list have wanted to
> >test various FreeBSD audio/video apps with me and were frustrated that
> >I only had that dinkly little V.34 modem. Well no more!
> >
> >I have now joined Amancio in the extended peni^H^H^H^Hbandwidth ISDN
> >club! :-)
:-)
> How much for the whole setup (16550's + Adtran)? I'd like to compare it to a
> sync card with the less expensive motorolas. You may be able to get 128k
> with no overhead for a few dollars more.
16550's - free essentially because no serious hacker will buy 16450 serial
ports. For the 16550-impaired, you can get a *good* card (STB DSP-550) with
two 16550's for around $31 wholesale, including a bidir parallel port.
The Motorola terminal adapters we use (UTA-220's) can do both sync and
async. Never tried the sync. You can find less expensive terminal adapters
that only do async. The UTA-220's were around $650 I believe when purchased
some time ago. Things like Bitsurfers should be in the <~$400 range.
All else being equal, I would agree that the ET/502* solutions are a nice
way to go, but there are downsides:
1) The ET/* board is at least $500 more expensive than a comparable 16550
solution.
2) Typically you have to run sync at both ends of the link. Many ISP's
will charge you more if you burn one of their valuable sync serial
router ports, but could care less about the cheaper async terminal
server ports - this can be a difference of up to a few hundred bucks
per month!
3) A terminal adaptor that does sync _may_ be more expensive.
Of course, the upsides are that there is low host CPU overhead (you're not
dealing with 1000 interrupts per second), and you get full 128K (although
with the latest Motorola stuff that's apparently a nonissue).
Maybe I don't care because either way I dedicate a host to being a router -
so host CPU loading is a nonissue to me.
... Joe
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joe Greco - Systems Administrator jgreco@ns.sol.net
Solaria Public Access UNIX - Milwaukee, WI 414/342-4847
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199510191625.LAA28235>