The Chase Research IOLAN was an ethernet to RS232 concentrator that allowed 16 terminals to be connected to an ethernet network (this was proper 10BASE5 and 10BASE2 ethernet, with chunky BNC or 15-way D connectors, none of your namby-pampy, easy-to-bend RJ-45 UTP nonsense).

The device took the guts of the AT family and married them to an ethernet interface. We bought in the TCP/IP stack from an American organisation – ethernet offering the chance to put your terminals much further away from the server, and to connect to multiple servers.

“IOLAN” is obviously a portmanteau of “IO” and “LAN”, but we also liked the idea that it sounded kind-of Greek. Although we still didn’t get around to adding flanges to the housing so the damn things could be fixed to a wall – we did look in to it but it would have made the boxes much more expensive…

I have the following printed material here:

A promotional flyer (in the same high quality photographic style as the AT and PS families)

And a more detailed 4 page brochure in the later house style of deeply textured paper.

The “IOLAN” was later taken over by Perle Systems, who distributed both Chase Research and Specialix products, one of the original distributors of the AT family who later (somewhat treacherously) turned out competing products.

I also have some close-up photographs courtesy of Allied Computer Solutions.