DUAL Ethernet Card

[MacTCP]

I may buy this for my Macintosh LC III. Would it need special drivers because it is dual or are the drivers built into Mac OS like for the singles?

 

[Charlieman]

You'll need the drivers designed for that card. Farallon no longer exists and the current owner makes it hard to find downloads, because they don't want old folks to buy their new products. IIRC, go to http://www.proxim.com but you will need to register. Use a throw away mail address.

 

[II2II]

Correct me if I'm wrong for this particular card: a few Mac ethernet cards had dual ports, but they did not offer two ethernet interfaces. The the two ports simply behaved as though they were connected via a hub, so that you could have a topology much like a LocalTalk network.

 

[MacTCP]

A single one would work without drivers, right?

 

[II2II]

Well, any ethernet card will require drivers. Apple got around a bit of the problem by allowing the developers to place fairly high level code in the ROM of NuBus (and, I assume, PDS) cards. The developers of ethernet cards tended to get around the rest of the problem by making their cards compatible with Apple cards so that they could use the Apple drivers (that were bundled with System 7 and later).

So I'm guessing that yes, one port will work. If the two ports behave as though they are on a hub, then both will work but it will only provide you with one ethernet interface. (And, if my guess is true, that would be the case both with and without Farallon's drivers.)

 

[~tl]

I have two, different, non-Apple LC-PDS ethernet cards - both work with the Apple drivers. From memory, that second one you posted looks the same as one of the ones I have, so at a guess I'd say it'd work. YMMV of course.

 

[MacG4]

the dual nic lc pds card would be a interesting one to have, thats for sure. i have never seen a dual head nic card for an lc

 

[Unknown_K]

I have one of those cards but its nubus. You do need drivers for it to work, and as others have stated it is just a single network device with the ability to plug another computer into it like a hub.

 

[TylerEss]

it's a pity that it isn't a real dual ethernet interface. That'd make an LCIII a decent router. :-(

 

[Unknown_K]

My IIsi came with that card and I heard it was used as a server (65MB RAM and somebody put an LED on the front case to show HD activity). Since I never seen that card before I asumed it was dual ethernet. Oh well atleast it works.

 

[equill]

All those PowerPC Macs that came with built-in AAUI and RJ-45 ports were explicitly stated by Apple to be able to use only one port at a time. And 'use', in this context, means have a connection to another device.

The same principle applies to plug-in cards with two or more ports, be they PDS, CS, CS II, or NuBus. There were many LC PDS cards with two ports, many Compact AIOs with PDS cards with two ports, and many NuBus cards with three ports. Often the RJ-45 port wasn't present at all, leaving the field clear for AUI and BNC.

de

 

[II2II]

The card in question has two RJ-45 ports, which is a bit different than cards supporting two different types of media. The single media types were meant to daisy chain in a manner like those PhoneNet dongles. I have seen them put to good use in a university computer lab: rather than having a large mass of cables going to a router/switch, there was one chain of cables going down each row. Much more manageable.

 

[Flash!]

geez i screwed that up.... meant to 'reply' and i accidentally edited this post instead...so now it makes no sense in the context of this thread...

Origainally I said that "i reckon it's a dual card...but I could be wrong..."

And my reply was that 'yes I'm often wrong...'

now where's that glass of red, I think I need a top up....

 

[Quadrajet]

I have one of those cards at home... The etherwave drivers are required and the card acts as a single interface.