Re: [TUHS] Spider [was: Unix quix]

[Jon Steinhart <jon@fourwinds.com>]

It connected to its hosts via a (discrete TTL-based) microcontroller or “TIU” and seems to have been connected almost immediately
to Unix systems: the oldest driver I have been able to locate is in the V4 tree (https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V4/nsys/dmr/tdir/tiu.c). It used a DMA-based parallel interface into the PDP11. As such, it seems to have been much faster than
the typical Datakit connection later - but I know too little about Datakit to be sure.

I have vague memories here that maybe Heinz can help with if his are any better.
I believe that Sandy played a part in "the loop" or "the ring" or whatever it
was called that we had connecting our Honeywell 516 to peripherals.  I do
remember the 74S00 repeaters because of the amount of time that Dave Weller
spent tuning them when the error rate got high.  Also, being a loop, Joe
Condon used to pull his connectors out of the wall whenever people weren't
showing up to a meeting on time.  I don't know whether our network was a
forerunner to the spider network.

Jon