🚀 go-pugleaf

In comp.sys.sun.hardware I wrote:

>Dear Sun users,

>I am looking for anyones experience with hooking high speed serial
>lines/devices up to a SUN. 

>My laboratory has a 4/470 with 5 IPC networked together and we are 
>looking for a solution to either transfer bulk data, or become a node
>off a local university.

>We are hoping to use an ISDN connection, however the Terminal Adaptors [TA]
>for SUNs seem inappropriate.  I have been offered an serial line TA [V.21], but 
>I am reluctant to waist the bandwidth of the ISDN.  Also offered is more 
>inteligent interface [v.35] however our local SUN reps don't know of a way to
>connect this to our SUN.  The Australian Telecome suggest that I use a PC
>card for the TA, but besides costing $1000 Aust., I must then transfer the 
>data [using NFS?] to the 470. Lately, a SUN VAR has come up with a German
>made ISDN card that fits into an IPC [still not directly into the 470], but
>it hasn't got Austel approval yet...

>Any experience or ideas ? 

The following are a summary of the replies:

4 mail messages concerning up and comming anouncements from SUN
regarding ISDN and new machines.

and the following 5 mail messages:
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Sun sells a high speed serial card for VME machines called the MCP board.
It offers 500 Kbps bandwidth and can support one or two RS449 connections.
We use a signal converter made by Black Box in Pittsburg, PA to convert
our 56 Kbps point to point private line, which is V.35 to Sun's RS449.
The MCP board is MCP-6.0-4-34-5 and lists for $4,400.  The Black Box signal
converter we use is part number TX-IC481A and lists for $300.
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You could put a Sbus HSI card in your machine
This will give you 4 x rs449 ports.
An individual port can run to speeds of 2mbit/s
Connect this via an r2449 <-> v.35 protocol converter to
a v.35 capable ISDN terminal adaptor (Solves austel problems as protocol
converter provides austel compliance, 
I know of a few places already doing this.
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Peter Elford at AARnet can point you in the right direction, but what
I'd do is buy a router with a V.35 serial interface (c. $4k) and a
V.35 ISDN TA to make the link.  (Depends what the Latrobe hub uses for
routers, you may need one on their end also, or at least another i/o
card for it.)
Don't bother putting ISDN straight into the Sun, it will be expensive,
untried and will slow the machine down.  Routers are cheap.
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This is a commercial plug, but a good one.
DigiBoard (the company I work for) has just announced a product called
the IMAC.  The product is an intelligent, cheap Ethernet/ISDN bridge
designed to connect a few (1-10) workstations on a LAN to a larger
LAN with an unlimited number of users.
The product uses 1-4 B channels to get 56K to 256K bit performance.
It can use digital lines or voice grade lines.  It works great, and
costs less than $2K on each end (I forget prices).
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JTEC, meadowbank NSW 02 8096933, [Australia] will soon have a TA on the market.
I dont know if it any good?????
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 Thanks for all the wonderful advice,

Cheers, 

Tom Vandenbelt