BC F Series
Chapter 1 - Introduction

Overview

The BC (Bus Controller) F Series processors are computers on single PC-style, plug-in boards. The BC F Series includes several models of processors as described below:

• BC 5133/5166/5200F/SE - the Cubix 133/166/200MHz Pentium processor-based ISA board with a 32-bit SCSI interface and optional PCI extension, up to 128 MB of RAM, and a 10/100Mbps Ethernet interface

• BC 5133/5166/5200F/SP - the Cubix 133/166/200MHz Pentium processor-based ISA board with a 32-bit SCSI interface, optional PCI extension, up to 384 MB of RAM, and a 10/100Mbps Ethernet interface

Hardware

Each BC F Series computer provides all the functionality of a standard PC. It includes video support, two serial ports, one parallel port, keyboard and mouse support, on board memory, floppy and IDE hard drive support. Also included is an integrated Ethernet controller with a 10/100 Base-T connector, and a fast SCSI interface.

A BC is the bus controller for the ISA bus in which it is installed. The BC can be installed only in a Cubix backplane. Cubix backplanes are often divided into groups, each with an independent bus, thereby allowing the installation of mutiple BC processors in a single Cubix enclosure.

The BC F Series processor is designed for installation in several Cubix enclosures:

• The BOS (Branch Office System) is a stand alone unit that may contain up to three BC F Series processors.

• ERS - Enhanced Resource Subsystem. May contain up to eight BC series processors and is available as a table top unit only.

• ERS II - Contains a 16-slot ISA backplane that can be divided into eight separate bus goups. May contain up to eight BC series processors and is available as a rack mount unit only.

• ERS/FT - Fault Tolerant version of ERS. May contain up to eight BC series processors and is available as a rack mount or table top unit.

• ERS/FT II - Fault Tolerant version of the ERS II. May contain up to eight BC series processors and is available as a rack mount or table top unit.

Each Cubix enclosure is equipped with an integrated multiplexer (MUX) which allows a single monitor, keyboard, mouse, and floppy disk drive to be shared by all of the BC processors installed in the enclosure. The ability to condense multiple processors in Cubix enclosures provides a manageable platform ideal for remote communications, fax servers, e-mail servers, and many other file server or specialty server applications.

The following table lists the CPU speed, maximum DRAM supported and whether or not the board is equipped with L2 Cache and SCSI.

Table 1-1
BC F Series Processor Boards Comparison

Software

Integrated onto each BC Series processor is a BIOS developed by American Megatrends, Inc. (AMI). In addition, Cubix provides software to support these features specific to the Cubix architecture:

• Mouse Multiplexing - software is required to allow a single mouse to be multiplexed between multiple BC processors

• Cubix Supervisory System - Cubix optionally provides a system which monitors and controls the BC processors and requires software support on each BC

• Ethernet Interface - use of the integrated Ethernet controller requries installation of 10/100 Base-T drivers

• SCSI Interface - use of the integrated SCSI interface requires installation of SCSI drivers. Table 1-1 lists the boards supporting the SCSI interface.

• Enhanced Video - installation of video drivers is required to increase the video resolution in certain environments

Board Identification

The SE version has two SIMM sockets and the SP version has 6 sockets. Refer to Figures 1-1 and 1-2.

Figure 1-1, BC 5133/5166/5200 F/SE Board

Figure 1-2, BC 5133/5166/5200 F/SP Board

This document, and all Web contents, Copyright © 1997 by Cubix Corp., Carson City, NV, USA.