Copenhagen-based Olicom A/S has announced what it claims is the industry’s first Token Ring Peripheral Component Interconnect adaptor, saying it can deliver peak data transfer rates of up to 133M-bytes a second. The offering comprises two main products: the new Texas Instruments Inc TI 380C25 controller and a new Olicom PC Interface Application Specific Integrated Circuit. According to Olicom, the adaptor operates at 4Mbps or 16Mbps and features a 32-bit Peripheral Component Interconnect bus master interface. It is also said to incorporate auto-sensing support of both unshielded and shielded twisted pair connections, and optional Flash Remote Program Load, adds the company. On the desktop management side, the adaptor includes an Simple Network Management Protocol desktop agent to provide information about the workstations in which the drivers are installed and the network traffic flowing to and from the workstation. In addition, the drivers are said to incorporate an in-built Desktop Management Interface. Olicom says that users can retrieve this information via its Adapter Info for Windows, a Windows-based utility that translates the Desktop Management Interface data from the device’s drivers into easily understood installation, configuration and performance data. The Adapter Info for Windows is supplied free with each Token Ring Peripheral Component Interconnect Adaptor, says Olicom. According to the company, the adaptor supports Personal Computer Memory Card International Association, Industry Standard Architecture, EISA and MicroChannel Architecture and complies with the Peripheral Component Interconnect Local Bus Specification revision 2.0. Olicom says that network operating systems the product supports include NetWare, LAN Manager, Windows for Workgroups and Windows NT. An optional Unix driver is also available. It will ship from October for $580.
