more weird stuff - ChameLAN 100-s

From: Paul Thompson <thompson_at_mail.athenet.net>
Date: Sat May 20 10:24:11 2000

This sounds like an early Dolch network analyser. Network General
(Computer Associates, now) used to sell some Dolch models although in
recent years they ran Windoze.

DOLCH made (makes?) industrial strength intel machines which were popular
among the military or industrial heavy duty crowd. I saw a Dolch
marketing pamphlet which featured a similar machine mounted in a Jeep.

It sounds like at the very least you might have the FDDI and token ring
(TR?) analysis options in there. Not a cheap machine in its day or even
likely today.

The first step to get around the login problem would be to try to
interrupt the boot process and sent it to single user mode.

Try a CTRL C early in the boot process. (A handy way to interrupt older
OS's like Ultrix in their boot...) If you get to the # prompt you
should be in as root.

Paul

On Sat, 20 May 2000, Joe wrote:

> Here's something else that I picked up in a load of old computers last
> week. It's one of those oversize lunch box computers with the keyboard that
> folds up against one side and covers the screen. It has six ISA type card
> slots that lay horizontal in the main unit. There's also a piggy back unit
> that has three more ISA type slots that stand vertical. The logo on the
> keyboard says "Tekelec" and ChameLAN 100-S". After some work, I finally
> got it to boot. The first surprise was that the LCD screen is a backlit
> color screen. The next surprise is that it boots into some kind of UNIX. I
> never did see a name for the UNIX but it pops up a number of different
> copyright notices including one for DOLCH, Tekelec and the usual UNIX ones.
> I couldn't get past the login id/password prompt. Any suggestions about
> how to get around it?
>
> It has some strange cards in it including several that appear to be very
> fancy Ethernet cards and another that has four fiber-optic connectors. The
> three boards in the piggy back unit are physicaly bolted together and each
> one has a four pin power connector similar to a 5 1/4" disk drive. There
> is a cable that connects to a each of those power connectors and a power
> outlet on the motherboard. The external connectors on these boards are
> marked "Bypass Control", "TR1" and "TR2" and "AUX". One of the boards has a
> big IC that's marked AMD AM79C830GC on it. I haven't been able to find a
> refernece to this chip. One of the other boards has an AMD AM7984AJC/20 on
> it. I haven't found a reference to that one either. Does anyone know what
> they are?
>
> The main computer is a 32 Mhz 486 with 16 Mb of RAM. The hard drive is a
> type 11 245 Mb IDE drive and it has a 1/3 height 1.44 Mb floppy drive.
> There are also extra LED indicators on the front of the computer that are
> marked "Ring Op" "Pri" "Sec", Signal Detect" "A" "B" and "Active" "A" "B".
>
> Does anyone know what this machine is made for or anything else about it?
>
> Joe
>
Received on Sat May 20 2000 - 10:24:11 BST