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There is a DEC NIC (the DEBNA and DEBNK) with both an on-board VAX chip, and an 80186 chip.

Expensive chip choices aside, this NIC could continue to run with the VAX host entirely shut down, if the VAXBI host bus was not specifically reset.

Which meant you could successfully ping a downed host, as the VAX and 80186 and firmware running out on the NIC could conspire to process that traffic autonomously.

Fun times.

http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/dec/vax/vaxbi/EK-DEBNX-IN-001_DEBNA_DEBNK_Installation_Guide_Aug87.pdf

#retrocomputing #dec #vax #vaxvms