On 13 Jun 96 at 22:25, velcro@pobox.com wrote:
> > On Thu, 13 Jun 1996, MegaZone wrote:
> >
> > > No. We do not release any specs, even *with* an NDA.
> >
> > It would not be in Livingstons best interest to give normal folks the
> > ability to make drivers for their card, especially w/r/t to UNIX. Think
> > about it: Spend a few hundred bucks on a card, a few hundred on the
> > hardware for a FreeBSD box, and voila, an OR.....
>
> Um, so? Livingston gets to sell PowerLinks instead. Big deal, I doubt
> it's going to cut into their sales of ORs, considering that I can
> already buy an ISDN card that has Linux drivers. The OR market is
> people who don't want to have to be Unix admins for their routers.
>
The OR is a cheap and powerful router. Don't forget that you have the
full packet filter and Choicenet support. Now compare to other stuff
(C*sc* for example)...
> Now, if Livingston wanted to further penetrate the market for ISDN cards
> they might consider the *BSD/Linux market more seriously. But hey,
> I'm no marketingman, just a logical technoweenie...
You're right. The market for ISDN cards, esp. in Europe, is saturated
with cheap but good ISDN cards. They all have one thing in common:
support for CAPI. There are CAPI subsystems for most OS like Linux,
OS/2, NT, etc. etc.
Another approach would be to access the ISDN card with a COM device.
But this must be done by hardware like the USR Courier I-Modem does,
not with special device drivers. COM ports are supported by every OS
on Intel machines.
Livingston's PowerLink will only have a chance in Europe, if it
supports either CAPI or has a native COM interface.
Frank
-- ***** The expressed opinions are totally mine! ***** Frank M. Heinzius MMS Communication GmbH frimp@mms.de Eiffestrasse 598 http://www.mms.de 20537 Hamburg, Germany Phone: +49 40 211105-0 Fax: +49 40 210 32 210 ***** U.S.Robotics and Livingston Distributor *****