Date   : Thu, 15 Nov 1990 10:04:52 GMT
From   : munnari.oz.au!sirius.ucs.adelaide.edu.au!levels!etrmg@THEORY.TN.CORNELL.EDU (What a Guy!)
Subject: Early microcomputer networks

In article <1990Nov14.175037.1497@eng.umd.edu>, hsu@eng.umd.edu (Dagwood
splits the Atom) writes:
> In article <1990Nov13.210141.28709@en.ecn.purdue.edu> milton@en.ecn.purdue.edu
(Milton D Miller) writes:
>>In article <JIM.90Nov12221608@baroque.Stanford.EDU> jim@baroque.Stanford.EDU
(James Helman) writes:
>>>I remember people having Corvus disk systems on their Apple II's
>>>around 1980.
>>Well, let's see what I can rember.  We had one of these installed in
>>high school...  The lab was installed in 1982; I graduated in 1986.
> ...
>>What I rember was 3 stackable boxes about 9x15" of various heights,
>>one was the network interface (2-3" high), one was the VCR backup
>>attachment (one board in a 1" case), and the disk itself
> 
> Sounds like a Corvus Constellation setup with the Corvus Mirror VCR backup
> device.  Who says videotape data storage is a new idea :-)
> 
> Someone actually bought a Mirror?  Wow.
>

Well, like I said, the Ozzie company here (my previous employer BTW :-) )
had the Omninet. . . They had one 10M server and a mirror, which was not
utilized; It was just 'around'.  Anyways - -  You could run Different net OS'es
on it.   Since it was basically RS-422, I guess the specs were pretty easy to
find.  Our problem was that we had the Constellation II software, an upgrade I 
assume from the C I product.  It used pipes to send files & things between
apples & IBM's, etc. . . I have seen a card since for an NEC APC (!?)
 Talk about a beast. . .
Well, that was basically our problem; because Novell had a package of Netware
to run on the Omninet.  Unfortunately, we had the CII software from Corvus, 
which had just gone under.  I couldn't find anything to help me use the system
and the rest of the site (Winery) was going headlong into Appletalk and since
Mac IIcx's, I got frustrated and left.  How can you do control on a shoestring
like that? 
It would have been nice to do Arcnet.  I understand that's a good deterministic
system.  Would have been just right for controlling gear remotely, although
there was another net (by Proteon?) called 10-net ???  I was impressed by that.
What has happened to it?  I could seal off sections of the net and if 
connections where completely broken, you'd have two separately operating
systems
Sounded great, but was $$$. . .

Ronn