What is the ethernet card on unix ?

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Jay Cotton

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May 11, 2025, 9:12:01 PMMay 11
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The Cromemco unix v.2 has an ether-net driver in the kernel.
I have tried to figure out what the name of that board is.

Does anyone know ?

tnx
jc

curt mayer

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May 11, 2025, 10:31:23 PMMay 11
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Lrt Filtabyte 2.0.  it had an onboard 16 or 64k buffer memory, and was all 7400 series and some pals.  It did not have a lance or other vlsi controller. Made in the UK.
  It was used in cromemco and dual machines, and I have a board set, but no docs.  It needs a cable harness for the physical layer, and I have no idea what that looks like.

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Peter Higgins

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May 11, 2025, 11:38:19 PMMay 11
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Late in the game, Cromemco sold a 2-board S100 ethernet controller they referred to as the "ENET". This was not the same as Cromemco's earlier non-ethernet "CNET" board, which needed to be paired with their IOP board.

I don't know if there is any relationship between the Cromemco ENET board, and the "Filtabyte" board described above.

Peter Higgins

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May 11, 2025, 11:46:20 PMMay 11
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Preliminary specs (1984) document for the ENET card attached.
198401 Cromemco Ethernet Card 023-8275.pdf

Jay Cotton

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May 12, 2025, 1:24:28 AMMay 12
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There is no documentation on either board sets.  I found a mention of the "enet" board in a sales flyer.

BTW the ENET card did not seem to make it out of the factory.  I found it listed at $2608.00, can't imagine 
anyone getting the thing, unless it was a government purchase.  It might have been developed to meet a COTS 
requirement.

WRT filtabyte.  there are lots of references to the card set.  The desired version is 2.0.  Still no documentation
there is a mention of a network adapter.  I'm thinking its a DB(mumble) to CAT5 cable.

Well given the lack of documentation, boards, and the lack of a tape unit.  I may be forced to get xmodem running.
gasp

tnx
jc

Peter Higgins

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May 12, 2025, 1:41:13 AMMay 12
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The lack of surviving documentation is probably not surprising. By that point in time (mid 1980s) Cromemco probably felt their market was large commercial and government users who would use Cromemco's network of dealers to set up systems, with no need to broadly distribute detailed product documentation as they had done in their early years. Though it seems the ENET board was announced at least as early as 1984, it continued to be mentioned in Cromemco's dealer publication until at least 1986 which leads me to think it was a "real" product. 

curt mayer

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May 12, 2025, 1:51:47 AMMay 12
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I worked at Unisoft in 1988-1990, and we had an xxu machine as our print server.  It had a LRT board pair, and was pretty reliable.
We did the System 5 port, and BNET was full Berkeley 4.2 BSD extensions, including job control and the gamut of networking.
We had some dual 83/80 in house with 68010 CPU, and they also used the boards.


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curt mayer

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May 23, 2025, 12:45:56 AMMay 23
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the link kit for the xxu unix has TWO ethernet drivers, if_lr.o and if_dy.o.   

the if_lr.o is for the LRT board set, but I don't know what the if_dy.o driver is for.

I've got disassembly of both drivers, but they don't have any useful strings in them.

here's the dump of the data section for the if_dy driver:

 1370 00000000 00001a5c 00800800 45746865  .......\....Ethe
 1380 726e6574 20636f6e 74726f6c 6c657220  rnet controller
 1390 25642c20 00004028 23296966 5f64792e  %d, ..@(#)if_dy.
 13a0 63202020 43726f6d 656d636f 20562e32  c   Cromemco V.2
 13b0 2e312e31 39006479 0064795f 6f757470  .1.19.dy.dy_outp
 13c0 75743a20 64792564 2063616e 6e6f7420  ut: dy%d cannot
 13d0 68616e64 6c652066 616d696c 79202564  handle family %d
 13e0 0a002573 25642069 6f63746c 20257820  ..%s%d ioctl %x
 13f0 6e6f7420 73757070 6f727465 640a0048  not supported..H
 1400 656c7021 20256420 62797465 73206973  elp! %d bytes is
 1410 20746f20 62696720 6f662061 20706163   to big of a pac
 1420 6b65740a 00647969 6e74723a 2049444f  ket..dyintr: IDO
 1430 4e20696e 74657272 7570740a 00496c6c  N interrupt..Ill
 1440 6567616c 20706163 6b657420 74797065  egal packet type
 1450 2025780a 00457468 65726e65 74202573   %x..Ethernet %s
 1460 25643a20 00626162 626c652c 2000636f  %d: .babble, .co
 1470 6c6c6973 696f6e2c 20006d69 73736564  llision, .missed
 1480 20706163 6b65742c 20006d65 6d6f7279   packet, .memory
 1490 2c200065 72726f72 20282578 292e0a00  , .error (%x)...
 14a0 6973206e 6f742061 6e206574 6865726e  is not an ethern
 14b0 65742063 6f6e7472 6f6c6c65 720a0049  et controller..I
 14c0 6c6c6567 616c2062 75666665 72205241  llegal buffer RA
 14d0 4d207369 7a653a20 30782578 0a006d65  M size: 0x%x..me
 14e0 6d6f7279 20666169 6c757265 2c207769  mory failure, wi
 14f0 6e646f77 2025642c 20616464 72657373  ndow %d, address
 1500 20307825 780a0077 696e646f 77202564   0x%x..window %d
 1510 2c207769 6e646f77 2073656c 65637469  , window selecti
 1520 6f6e2066 61696c75 72650a00 626f6172  on failure..boar
 1530 64207365 6c656374 696f6e20 6661696c  d selection fail
 1540 7572650a 00000000                    ure.....

and the data section of the if_lr driver:

  0b5c 00000b78 00000000 00000000 00000000  ...x............
 0b6c 00000004 02608600 00000000 40282329  .....`......@(#)
 0b7c 69665f6c 722e6309 43726f6d 656d636f  if_lr.c.Cromemco
 0b8c 20562e32 2e312e34 006c7200 4e6f2072   V.2.1.4.lr.No r
 0b9c 6f6f6d20 696e2074 72616e73 6d697420  oom in transmit
 0bac 62756666 65722c20 6c722564 0a004578  buffer, lr%d..Ex
 0bbc 63657373 69766520 7472616e 736d6973  cessive transmis
 0bcc 73696f6e 20657272 6f727320 6f6e206c  sion errors on l
 0bdc 7225643b 20526573 65747469 6e672e2e  r%d; Resetting..
 0bec 2e0a006c 7225643a 20737075 72696f75  ...lr%d: spuriou
 0bfc 7320786d 69742069 6e746572 72757074  s xmit interrupt
 0c0c 0a006c72 25643a20 73707572 72696f75  ..lr%d: spurriou
 0c1c 7320696e 74657272 7570740a 006c7225  s interrupt..lr%
 0c2c 64206372 63206572 726f720a 006c7225  d crc error..lr%
 0c3c 6420696e 74656772 616c2062 79746573  d integral bytes
 0c4c 20657272 6f720a00 6c722564 3a206361   error..lr%d: ca
 0c5c 6e277420 68616e64 6c652061 6625640a  n't handle af%d.
 0c6c 006d6765 74000000                    .mget...

any idea what ethernet board the if_dy driver is for? 

I'll see if I can get ghidra to do a decompilation for either driver.

--curt

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--curt mayer


I refine, they debug, he/she patches, they kludge.

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