Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!excelan!kinetics.com
From: markw@kinetics.com (Mark Wittenberg)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: How fast should the EtherTalk board be?
Message-ID: <763@excelan.COM>
Date: 22 Nov 89 19:35:05 GMT
References: <375@capmkt.COM>
Sender: news@excelan.COM
Lines: 31

From article <375@capmkt.COM>, by bandy@capmkt.COM (Shift Happens):
> neil@yc.estec.nl (Neil Dixon) writes that his Macintosh EtherTalk interface
> card in his Mac II is only giving him 4kb/sec transsfer rates with NCSA
> Telnet.  He wonders if this is normal.
> 
> Unfortunately, it's quite normal.  In addition to your Macintosh being
> somewhat slow [no DMA], the EtherTalk card [as of last May, which is the
> last time I complained to anyone at Apple about it] doesn't support on-board
> buffering, even though they have 16kbytes worth of packet buffers.  

Perhaps normal, but not (to me) acceptable.  Our (Novell/Excelan/Kinetics)
telnet/ftp program (LAN Workplace for the Mac) running over our Ethernet
board (EtherPort II) in binary mode gets 50KB to 95KB per second (bytes,
not bits) on a MacII with a fast disk; you should see at least 15KB to 25KB
on any platform.  I'd like to claim that our board is just that much faster
than Apple's, but I don't think that it's true (we don't have DMA either ...).
I think that it's your NCSA Telnet; that's about the throughput I got when I
first tested it.  To get better throughput:

1. Get the latest version.
2. (Even if you don't get the latest version)  Tune the settable parameters
   in your config file; in particular, set the buffer sizes bigger (try
   4K).
3. Consider buying a supported commercial product.  I know that both ours and
   Intercon's (the commercial version of NCSA) are good; there are probably
   others too (Ungermann-Bass?)

Mark Wittenberg			Voice:		(415) 975-4512
Kinetics/Excelan/Novell, Inc.	Internet:	markw@kinetics.com
1340 Treat Blvd. Suite 500	UUCP:		ucbvax!mtxinu!kinetics!markw
Walnut Creek, CA 94596		AppleLink:	D0927