Tandem Computers Inc is to market the SNA-Hub developed by Netlink Inc, Raleigh, North Carolina – in which it has an equity stake – to its own customers, strengthening Tandem’s offerings for connecting its NonStops with IBM SNA networks. The SNA-Hub operates with standard IBM communications and network management products, concentrating communications lines running from SNA terminals to host systems. It supports up to 16 direct, leased, multi-drop and dial-up SNA/SDLC lines at up to 64Kbps. It also can dynamically route communications from SNA terminals to different hosts, so that devices can switch between Tandem applications and SNA host applications on demand. Each SNA-Hub has slots for eight intelligent port cards to link upstream hosts and downstream devices. They can either be RS-232C cards with two SDLC ports for direct, dial-up, or leased line transmission at up to 19.2Kbps each, or V35 cards for a single SDLC port at up to 64 Kbps. Each port card has an 80188 microprocessor with 256Kb memory and they can be used in any combination. Software components include run-time support on the SNA-Hub, an IBM host resident Network Support Program for dynamically configuring and loading the SNA-Hub; and a program for configuring the SNA-Hub. Available in May, it costs $17,000 plus $1,250 for slow, $2,000 for the fast cards. Tandem also announced plans with its Ungermann-Bass acquisition to support the OS/2 operating system and LAN Manager, and said that PC6530 terminal emulation and file transfer software for OS/2-based micros was available, plus Tandem Multilan support for OS/2 and LAN Manager. Ungermann-Bass announced an OEM agreement with Microsoft Corp for LAN Manager and said that it planned to extend its product capability to OS/2.
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