155 Megabit ATM network card for PCI based Power Macintosh announced

Ilford UK June 19th 1995:

Neutral Ltd. today announced the Neutral ATM 155 M/bit networking card for
use with Apple's second generation Power Macintosh systems which
incorporate the industry standard PCI Bus.

"Apple's decision to provide the excellent data throughput advantages of
PCI opens up exciting new possibilities for very high speed, reliable and
scalable networking using ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode). It just wasn't
possible with Nubus." stated Neutral's Marketing Manager Stephen
Bracken-Keogh.

ATM is firmly based on international standards and offers a networking
technology that can be scaled from megabits to gigabits of bandwidth
providing a solution for both current and future network traffic where
simultaneous transfer of voice, data and video will demand guaranteed
bandwidth.

The Neutral ATM 155 brings low-cost high speed ATM to the Macintosh desktop
thanks to the incorporation of the PCI standard.

Neutral ATM 155 networking card for PCI based Power Macintosh systems

The Neutral ATM 155 card is based on ATM Forum standards for 155 megabit
ATM, and can be used with currently available ATM Forum compliant
switches/hubs. It is available with a Category 5 twisted pair (UTP or STP)
or fibre interface. Cat 3 twisted pair support is expected in late '95.

PCI based Power Macintosh systems take full advantage of the 155 megabit
data rate by providing a full speed PCI interface to the card. Hardware on
the card loads data to and from system RAM directly (saving CPU time) at
over 30 megabytes per second (15 MB/s in each direction). The plug and
play software supplied with the card supports AppleTalk and TCP/IP making
installation simple.

Features

* Fibre or UTP/STP Cat 5 (Cat 3 late '95) full duplex 155Mb/s
  (310Mb/s bandwidth).
* High performance PCI bus master (DMA) transfers over 30 megabytes
  per second (15 MB/s in each direction).
* Works with existing ATM Forum compliant switches or hubs.
* 155 Mb/s ATM Forum and standards compliant.
* Plug and play AppleTalk or TCP/IP networking.
* Excellent price/performance. $2.60 per megabit (UTP 5) (1)

* Note: File/data transfer rates depend on the speed of the hard disk, CPU,
network protocols and software.
(1) Based on full duplex, excludes switch and cabling costs.

Uses

The Neutral ATM 155 networking card can be used with existing ATM Forum
compliant switch devices thus allowing PCI based Power Macintosh systems
to integrate with other networks already enjoying the advantages of ATM.
Macintosh application areas that would gain the maximum benefit from using
the Neutral ATM 155 solution are:

* Pre-Press -  Text and Data transfer, Graphics transfer, Still Image
               transfer.
* Business -   File sharing, Database access, Document Archival and
               Retrieval services, LAN and WAN Electronic Mail,
               Medical Imaging and CAD CAM transfers.
* Multimedia - Video and Audio, Video mail service, Video
               Conferencing, Remote education and training.

Pricing

Neutral ATM 155 networking card for PCI based Power Macintosh systems.
Retail Price -
UTP Cat 5 interface US   $799
Fibre interface US       $999

About Neutral

Founded in 1984 Neutral is one of the original European Mac research and
development companies. Well-known in the UK for its NeuNet networking
system (which has over 100,000 installations), Neutral also won a UK
MacUser award for best communications and networking hardware. Neutral has
more recently been concentrating on ATM research and development. Neutral
provides a range of networking products for both Localtalk and Ethernet
and also acts as UK distributor for a number of networking, video and copy
protection products.

Contact

Neutral Ltd, 79 Milk Street, Suite 1108, Boston. MA 02109-3903 USA.
Phone 617 292 648

Neutral Ltd, 633 High Road, Seven Kings, Ilford, Essex. IG3 8RA. UK.
Phone (+44) 181 599 9902     Fax (+44) 181 590 6365
AppleLink: UK0015            Internet: info@neutral.demon.co.uk

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