Excelan Inc of San Jose, California, has introduced a high-performance intelligent personal computer controller board that it claims reduces the cost of departmental and local area network computing. The product, called the EXOS 205T board, enables IBM Personal Computers, the XT, AT and RT and compatibles, to communicate with other personal computers and with dissimilar host computers over standard thick Ethernet or lower-cost thin Ethernet cable. Excelan claims that local area network connection costs are cut by a built-in Ethernet transceiver and connectors for both thin and thick Ethernet, which eliminate the cost of installing them separately. The product also has 256Kb of random-access memory with zero-wait states, which allows the board to offload communications processing from the personal computer, giving it more memory to run applications. The board also includes built-in hardware refresh circuitry that is designed to increase compatibility with Personalikes, and a 32Kb EPROM socket, enabling diskless computers to be booted across the network. EXOS 205T is compatible with Excelan’s existing EXOS 8000 series of TCP/IP networking software. The company also offers a NetBIOS interface that allows networked personal computers to run off-the-shelf applications such as the IBM PC LAN Program or Novell Network. EXOS 205T will be available for worldwide quantity shipments in April. Single quantity pricing is $895. When combined with various software, the package runs from $895 to $1,295.
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