Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!VAX.FTP.COM!jbvb
From: jbvb@VAX.FTP.COM (James Van Bokkelen)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc
Subject: Re: Western Digital board
Message-ID: <8805110429.AA03980@vax.ftp.com>
Date: 11 May 88 04:29:24 GMT
References: <21523@amdcad.AMD.COM>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 12

In my experience, shared memory is a *lot* faster than DMA on an AT.  The
five fastest boards we support all use shared memory.  Of course, Excelan
uses shared memory, too, but the classic problem with outboard protocol
implementations is that they are complicated to talk to.  This is likely
to eat up all the gains from using two processors, and then some.

W-D does have a slight edge on some other cards, in that their shared memory
address is set by software: only the interrupt vector and I/O address are
set via jumpers.  With PC/TCP, the WD8003 is right up there with Interlan's
NI5210 and 3Com's 3C523 (Etherlink-MC) for speed.

James VanBokkelen
FTP Software Inc.