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(tm) 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(tm)
and VDA(tm), to provide high performance servers and workstations with a
highly reliable, link level connection to the high-speed 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. It 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 VMEbus adapter market."

The 2200 and 2300 Series also employ Rockwell's Virtual Driver
Architecture(tm) (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(R), Windows NT(tm), SCO UNIX, UnixWare(tm), Solaris(R),
and AIX are also included with the 2200 and 2300 Series. Windows(tm) for
Workgroups, Windows95(tm), 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 in the following
configurations.

    Rockwell 2200-FD
      Dual Attach Fiber

    Rockwell 2200-FSM
      Single Attach Fiber

    Rockwell 2200-CS
      Single Attach Copper

    Rockwell 2300-TX
      100BASE-TX Fast Ethernet

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

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.

For more information about our products and services please email
sales@rns.rockwell.com or call 1-800-262-8023.

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