[HECnet] Qbus ethernet spare?

[Dave McGuire]

On 06/19/2012 11:13 AM, Paul_Koning at Dell.com wrote:
That said, the DELQA has a "DEQNA compatibility mode"...whether that
makes it as slow and/or buggy as the DEQNA, I don't know.

I don't think so.

QNA compatibility mode means it works like a QNA from the driver point of view.   That was never the issue with the QNA -- if it had worked according to the specification, it would have been quite a good device.   The problem was that it never worked correctly, not even after 12 revisions.   Finally when rev L didn't work adequately either, the DEC software teams said enough is enough, we're dumping the QNA.

The issues were most obvious on VMS; I'm not sure if they were visible enough on the PDP11 OSs to cause concern.   Maybe with LAT, probably not or less so with DECnet.   I don't remember the details, other than that Local Area VAXclusters were the ones that tended to run into trouble, since those protocols were particularly unforgiving.

  I remember hearing from 25 years ago the bugs in the DEQNA, but never
knew what they were/are.   I wonder if that information is archived
anywhere.   In some Micronotes somewhere maybe?

                          -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA