ROCKWELL UNVEILS HIGH-PERFORMANCE NETWORK DRIVER FOR NEXT GENERATION POWER
MACINTOSH PLATFORM

Custom ASIC and software architecture optimize performance, reliability,
price

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (June 19, 1995)--Rockwell Network Systems, a business
unit of Rockwell, today announced a Macintosh driver for its 2200 and 2300
Series of high performance network interface cards (NICs) that allows
Macintosh computers to take advantage of high-speed local-area networking
for the first time. The Rockwell 2200 Series FDDI NICs and 2300 Series
100BASE-X Fast Ethernet NICs provide a high-performance network connection
and interface to Apple's PCI-based Power Macintosh 9500, which was also
introduced today. Rockwell's 2200 and 2300 Series are among the first to
work in either a Macintosh or PC with no hardware modification.

"Rockwell has ramped production of its Apple-compatible adapters to
coincide with the release of the Power Macintosh 9500," said Frank Roys,
Rockwell Network Systems director of marketing. "Given the
high-performance leadership of our existing FDDI adapter products in the
UNIX and PC environments, we are striving to achieve the highest
performance for Macintosh users as well."

The 2200 and 2300 Series use two Rockwell core technologies, FASTRACC and
VDA, to provide high performance servers and workstations with a highly
reliable, link level connection to the highspeed backbone. The 2200 Series
represents Rockwell's second-generation of FDDI products based on these
core technologies. The 2300 Series is Rockwell's first Fast Ethernet
product family. FASTRACC, implemented as a custom ASIC design,
economically achieves the highest performance in its class. lt provides
all system interface, data movement, management and control functions
using an optimized, embedded ASIC.

"The advanced silicon integration further reduces its cost while increasing
its reliability," said Roys. "This technology has already been proven in
Rockwell's previous generation of FDDI adapters, which currently provide
the highest performance in the FDDI VME-bus adapter market."

The 2200 and 2300 Series also employ Rockwell's Virtual Driver Architecture
(VDA), a common core software architecture which can be ported across a
wide range of different NICs, operating systems and network protocol
environments. VDA partitions the software development into several layers,
including a hardware-dependent layer, a system/OS dependent layer and a
core hardware/OS-independent layer. As VDA-based drivers are ported to
other NICs, system platforms or protocols, only the affected layer
requires additional development.

"VDA makes it easy for us to quickly add drivers for additional computing
environments, and this is why we can so quickly address the emerging PCI
Macintosh market," said Steve Ricca, director of engineering for Rockwell
Network Systems. "It also allows us to efficiently port existing drivers
to additional system buses and network technologies, as new adapters are
developed."

Drivers for NetWare, Windows NT, SCO UNIX, UnixWare, Solaris, and AIX are
also included with the 2200 and 2300 Series. Windows for Workgroups,
Windows95, and OS/2 drivers are under development. This wide array of
network operating system drivers allows Rockwell customers to connect a
wide variety of high-speed devices to high-speed networks, including
systems from vendors such as Apple, AT&T, AST, ALR, Compaq, Dell, Digital,
Hewlett-Packard, and IBM. These computers address the need for high-speed
access to servers running graphics, multimedia and client/server
applications.

PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) is a new local bus architecture,
which provides a high-speed connection through a direct path from the
peripheral device to the CPU and main memory. The result of the 32-bit
wide, direct data path and 33MHz clock is a maximum data transfer rate of
132MBps.

The 2200 Series supports asynchronous and synchronous FDDI operations, with
alternatives for single attach stations (SAS) and dual attach stations
(DAS). A programmable 64-entry, 48-bit content addressable memory (CAM)
handles fast detection and matching of destination source, individual or
multicast addresses. The series also supports ANSI compliant Station
Management (SMT) version 7.3 and ANSI/ISO X3T12.

Rockwell 's PCI adapters are currently available at the following list
prices.

Rockwell 2200-FD    Dual Attach Fiber                $1,795
Rockwell 2200-FSM   Single Attach Fiber              $1,295
Rockwell 2200 CS    Single Attach Copper             $  795
Rockwell 2300-TX100BASE-TX Fast Ethernet         $  295

Hardware prices include all available network operating system drivers,
including the new driver for the PCI-based Power Macintosh 9500.

Rockwell Network Systems, a unit of Rockwell Telecommunications, is a
leading supplier of high-performance, standards-based LAN and remote
access hardware and software to OEMs, systems integrators and value-added
resellers worldwide. Rockwell Network Systems is located at 7402 Hollister
Ave., Santa Barbara, Calif. 93117 Telephone 805-968-4262/800-262-8023.

Rockwell International Corporation (NYSE:ROK) is a diversified, high
technology company holding leadership market positions in automation,
avionics, aerospace, defense electronics, telecommunications, automotive
components and graphic systems, with annual worldwide sales of more than
$12 billion.

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