COMBOX

COMBOX was an intelligent communication system of the Bundeswehr in the format of a 5¼ inch drive and was used to connect computer systems to communication networks. The COMBOX could be used on computers with a SCSI connection. The manufacturer of the device was Siemens AG in Unterschleißheim .

The possible applications concerned the DEC 5000 / Ultrix computers with the PC / MS-DOS or PC / LYNX OS operating systems . In conjunction with user-specific software, the COMBOX was able to process independent communication protocols without loading the host computer.

There were three device variants: "Control", "Network" and "Interfaces". The control module was mandatory as the central processing unit. Application-specific network and interface modules were SCSI, V.24 radio, V.24 HDLC, X.21 and LAN .

The hardware of the COMBOX consisted of an 80386SX CPU with 16 MHz and 4 MB RAM as well as 3 MB Flash-PROM, 8 DMA channels and a serial interface 10 Mbit / s synchronous and 2 Mbit / s asynchronous.

In the mid-1990s, the Bundeswehr used around 600 subsystems in the HEROS (Army Command Information Systems for computer-aided operations management in staffs) and HFlaAFüSys (Army Air Defense Reconnaissance and Command System ).

Web links

• Quick start for the ComBox (accessed on July 21, 2017)
• ComBox communication fast, easy, secure and inexpensive (accessed on July 21, 2017)