BI Bus

From: Bill Pechter <pechter_at_pechter.dyndns.org>
Date: Mon Jun 28 14:33:57 1999

> > It was open? I could swear I remember a really big stink in
> > the DEC press when the BI was introduced. Of course, this
> > wouldn't be the first time bit-rot affected my historical
> > claims.
>
> It was open but DEC was the sole source for the interface/protocal
> chipset. Hence the stink. It' was never actully locked as a few years
> later there was both a second source and a "open" spec available. The
> fact of the matter is most vendor specific buses tend to be somewat
> closed if by virtue of lack of adoption by third parties.
>
> Allison

It was open for a minimal definition of the word open.
DEC owned the chip set and protocol and would sell you the chip set
if your board was not a competitor to a DEC board.

As I recall...

A number of outfits purchased the older lowest priced DEC board
available to pull the chips for the BI bus to make disk controllers
and such since DEC wasn't going to let anyone reverse engineer the set
without a major patent fight.

DEC cut it's own throat on this one and the BI bus never took hold.
They did something similar with the Massbus and Cache-Bus interconnect
on the 11/70's.

They were always high priced on disks and peripherals (but a lot of
their controllers and stuff had the best diags, maint features around).

The first DEC controller and disk drive I really liked was the HSC50/RA81.
(Well I did like RK05J's and F's)

Bill
who left DEC around the time of the BI bus release... and has NO
proprietary data on 'em.
---
  bpechter_at_shell.monmouth.com|pechter_at_pechter.dyndns.org
      Three things never anger: First, the one who runs your DEC,
      The one who does Field Service and the one who signs your check.
Received on Mon Jun 28 1999 - 14:33:57 BST

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