Fibronics UK Ltd has announced the support of IBM mainframes on its Fibre Distributed Data Interface networks with System Finex, a 100Mbps fibre-optic token ring local area network. The new FX8222 connects the Systems Finex fibre-optic backbone ring directly to a channel of an IBM 370-type mainframe; it sends and receives data on the IBM channel at up to 3Mbytes-per-second, while the data rate on the FDDI backbone is 100Mbits-per-second. The FX8222 from Basingstoke, Hampshire-based Fibronics is supported on mainframes by Fibronics’ KNET software, available for MVS and VM operating systems; the FX8222 is UKP27,000 per mainframe connected to the network.
