From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!neil
Newsgroups: net.lan
Title: Re: U-B survey, second installment... - (nf)
Article-I.D.: hplabs.1205
Posted: Fri Feb 18 15:26:42 1983
Received: Sun Feb 20 05:47:08 1983

#R:unm-ivax:-13600:hplabs:6300001:000:1023
hplabs!neil    Feb 18 14:54:00 1983

The Ungermann-Bass Net/1 stuff really CANNOT talk to anything else
other than U-B boxes (at least the current stuff.  They have prommised
to change it...)  The reason is that they have the U-B Ethernet address
hard coded into their firmware, so U-B boxes can only address other U-B
boxes.

Also, the standard Net/1 firmware give no raw access to an Ethernet
datagram packet;  they only allow U-B type datagrams (that talk about
U-B board numbers, and connectors on a board, etc.)  Clearly U-B wants
to sell you an ENTIRE system.

I suspect that they will be changing this.  I have heard that they have
gotten a bit bloodied in the market because people wanted to talk to more
than terminals.

On the plus side, if you use Net/1 for what it was designed for (terminal
multiplexing to computers;  printer multiplexing, etc) then it does quite
nicely.  But if you want computer-computer datagrams (especially to things
made by other vendors) be sure they have revised their firmware.

	Neil Katin
	HP Labs
	ucbvax!hplabs!neil