Re: OR/U's versus Pipeline 75 (fwd)

MegaZone (megazone@livingston.com)
Tue, 20 May 1997 19:34:35 -0700 (PDT)

Once upon a time Al Hopper shaped the electrons to say...
>Yes, but you don't use the _one_ CPU to do everything. STAC is available
>as a custom IC. You could handle compression of 2 or 3 T1s using an off-

Yes, I know - the PM-3 uses a 9711 STAC-LZS (Hi-Fn) chip for example.

The PM-3 may well be able to do it. Note that I said we intend to test
things to see what they can do, not that we decided not to.

>> It would raise the HW costs significantly to give it the kind of horsepower

Note here I'm addressing OR - since the percentage change is much more
noticable considering the price difference between and OR and an PM-3...

Of course, the OR doesn't need nearly the horsepower. The 386 in the
OR-ISDN is quite capable of doing STAC on ISDN, that was anticipated.
Since the OR-SYNC units are envisioned as stub routers, the need for full
bore compression is not seen there. A stronger case can be made for the
PM-3, and any future routing products used at a hub location or for the
main feeds. Like any IRX replacement product, etc.

>This "widely accepted" translates to this: "It has yet to be engineered
>correctly". Let me make a prediction: Livingston will migrate to a
>multi-processor architecture over time.

The PM-3 is already multiprocessor - HDLC controllers handle the I/O,
DSPs do the grunt PPP work, a STAC chip does compression, etc.

-MZ

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