Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!image.soe.clarkson.edu!news From: nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Ethernet cards Message-ID: Date: 1 Mar 90 03:06:51 GMT References: <1990Feb28.002619.16469@ccu.umanitoba.ca> Sender: news@sun.soe.clarkson.edu Reply-To: nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu Organization: Clarkson University, Potsdam NY Lines: 66 In-reply-to: umcarls9@ccu.umanitoba.ca's message of 28 Feb 90 00:26:19 GMT In article <1990Feb28.002619.16469@ccu.umanitoba.ca> umcarls9@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Charles Carlson) writes: I flip through Computer Shopper and I see Ethernet cards advertised for around the $150 mark. Can someone tell me: 1) Are Ethernet cards basically generic in form? Ie, if I buy LANtastic now, and I need to upgrade to Novell later, will the same Ethernet boards work? Or does each network require its own specialized Ethernet board? All Ethernet cards are basically totally different in form. Several companies have recently started to clone Novell's cards, however that doesn't really help. 2) Do these boards come with the low level drivers required to interface to any netbios/lanbios with? I don't know. All that I can say is that if you get the packet driver version of IPX, and a packet driver exists for your board, you're in business. Availability information for the Clarkson collection of packet drivers is appended. 3) Are there performance differences in these boards? Yes, however, most of the current Ethernet boards have roughly the same performance. Some of the newer bus mastering boards have the potential for higher performance, but I don't think the software exists to take good advantage of them yet. The Clarkson packet driver collection Availability The Clarkson collection of packet drivers is available by FTP, by archive-server, Fido file request, and by modem. They come in two flavors -- executables only (drivers.arc), and source+executables (driverss.arc). All of the following instructions apply to both drivers.arc and driverss.arc. FTP: sun.soe.clarkson.edu:/pub/ka9q/drivers.arc grape.ecs.clarkson.edu:/e/tcpip/drivers.arc Archive-server: Send mail to archive-server@sun.soe.clarkson.edu and put the following command as the body of your message: help This will send you a help message. Reading this help message will tell you how to fetch the packet drivers. Modem: Call the Clarkson Heath User's Group's BBS: (315)268-6667, 8N1, 1200/2400 Baud, 24 hours. Change to file area 24 and download drivers.arc. Opus: 260/360 in the Nodelist. Drivers.arc is file requestable. -- --russ (nelson@clutx [.bitnet | .clarkson.edu]) Russ.Nelson@$315.268.6667 Violence never solves problems, it just changes them into more subtle problems