Help setting up Ethernet with an SE/30

[davidg5678]

Hello,

I have recently finished restoring my Mac SE/30, and I am now trying to get it to connect to the internet (or at least some FTPs and telnets). I have an Asante MacCon SE 30/E installed, but I cannot seem to get it working.

Currently, I have a standard RJ45 ethernet cable run from the ethernet card into my router. I read here that the auto speed negotiation between the computer and router can get messed up without manual configuration, so I set the speed of the ethernet port on my router to 10 Half-Duplex. Unfortunately, it seems that the router does not recognize the presence of the MacCon card at all. There are no lights on the ethernet port for the router or card, and the router does not register anything plugged into that port from its online configurator.

I am using the default networking extensions that came with System 7.1, and I also have MacTCP 2.1 installed. In terms of MacTCP configuration, I have 255.255.255.0 as the subnet mask, the gateway set to my router IP address, the DNS as 8.8.8.8 with a domain of ".", and the IP address set to an unused one on my network. I also made sure to select Ethernet and not LocalTalk in MacTCP.

When I try to connect to anything online, I get errors about an unresolved hostname, or the computer says that MacTCP is not working (I have reinstalled it several times to no avail). Furthermore, my router does not seem to register at all that I have plugged an SE/30 into it. I am not certain that the ethernet card is working at all as I have never seen its LED light up.  :/   At the very least, I was able to see that the computer recognizes it in TattleTech.

Any help in setting this up would be greatly appreciated!

 

[maceffects]

I've not observed a MacCon SE/30 card quite like this before.  I'm going to follow this to see what others contribute so we can know more about this rare bird.

 

[davidg5678]

I've not observed a MacCon SE/30 card quite like this before.  I'm going to follow this to see what others contribute so we can know more about this rare bird.

I was not able to find any information about this model online at all. I wonder what it is!

 

[Michael_b]

I've not observed a MacCon SE/30 card quite like this before.  I'm going to follow this to see what others contribute so we can know more about this rare bird.

+1 - I have one of these cards, so I'm also curious. I haven't gotten a chance to test mine.

Interestingly enough, the chip for U8 has identifying markings ground off and replaced with an Asante label on mine, while it is not concealed on yours. Looks like it is a PAL chip.

I've never seen that particular ethernet daughterboard, however. I've seen the T7220 and the LXT902PC chips used, but the chip on yours appears to be 24(?) pins - very curious to know what IC that could be.

 

[maceffects]

Actually given that the OPs card serial number is 90130007, I’d suspect that this one was from the 13th week of 1990 and the 7th unit produced.  Given this, and that it is revision A1, I suspect it may be a late prototype or a buggy earlier production (which could explain your issues). 

 

[davidg5678]

I was able to find this article about the card online, but it does not help very much in terms of actually configuring things. https://books.google.com/books?id=BxIEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=maccon+se30e&source=bl&ots=tzq3LfUQlE&sig=ACfU3U30sNq-vJqkUjVL0VSeZn7ZySESTg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi_so2ghtDoAhWrdN8KHZA7CgkQ6AEwAHoECAkQKQ#v=onepage&q=maccon se30e&f=false

I suspect it may be a late prototype or a buggy earlier production (which could explain your issues). 

It would be quite interesting if this is the case. I know nothing about how this card or computer were originally used, but I assume it was in some sort of computer lab, as the hard drive was named something like "Number 13" in Finder.

Does anyone have any ideas about how I can confirm that the card is actually functional? I have not seen its LED turn on once, and an Asante troubleshooting program I found online gives a message similar to this: "NIC Transmission failed due to collision error".

 

[Bolle]

I would take a guess and say the RJ45 port on your breakout board is not an ethernet port.

I don’t see the appropriate transceiver anywhere.

The only thing that’s there is a coax transceiver.

Can you check where the pins of the RJ45 jack connect to?

Edit: just read through the linked article. It even states that the card is only doing thin-net with twisted pair support coming somewhere in the future.

 

[davidg5678]

@Bolle

Here are some pictures of the daughter card:





It looks to me like the RJ45 jack is connected directly to the main PDS card, and it is not doing anything in relation to the rest of the daughter card apart from being attached to it.

 

[Bolle]

The RJ45 port connects right to the open socket strips on the main card.

Looks like the twisted pair option was an extra module on the main card instead of a different breakout board like on the later cards.

Looks like you will be stuck with BNC only on this card.

 

[davidg5678]

The RJ45 port connects right to the open socket strips on the main card.

Looks like the twisted pair option was an extra module on the main card instead of a different breakout board like on the later cards.

Looks like you will be stuck with BNC only on this card.

It looks like you are definitely right. Thanks for spotting the reason it did not work! Is there a way to convert between BNC and 10 Base T ethernet networks? If not, it looks like I'll need to find another ethernet card for my project. If anyone has a working RJ45 compatible SE/30 ethernet card that they would like to trade for this model or sell, let me know!

 

[cheesestraws]

Is there a way to convert between BNC and 10 Base T ethernet networks?

Yup - the key words to look for are "media converter".  You may also find this built into a hub (which will also help deal with any autoneg woes which these cards are good at imposing).  At least from a quick glance at eBay (UK in my case), it is likely to be cheaper to get one of these than another Ethernet card.  The first hit that came up was a 10BaseT hub with a single 10Base2 port for about 50GBP.

 

[davidg5678]

Yup - the key words to look for are "media converter".  You may also find this built into a hub (which will also help deal with any autoneg woes which these cards are good at imposing).  At least from a quick glance at eBay (UK in my case), it is likely to be cheaper to get one of these than another Ethernet card.

Will something like this work? https://www.ebay.com/itm/BNC-to-RJ45-Media-Converter-Ethernet-Video-Balun-Adapter-for-Security-Cams/173732135062?hash=item28733e0096:g:eLAAAOSwvapcLMbp

 

[cheesestraws]

Will something like this work?

I think that's lying about being Ethernet: it says G.703 on the side and the impedences are wrong. 

You probably want something that explicitly says 10Base2 and 10BaseT in it.  The one I was looking at in the UK is https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10base2-to-10baseT-Media-convertor-8-Port-Hub-inc-PSU-10b2-to-10bT/184167092424?hash=item2ae136d0c8:g:4Y0AAOSwNIFeQoal

This is in the US and is the kind of thing you want: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tyco-Electronics-Model-2214-1591004-0-Media-Converter-IEEE-802-3-10Base2-10BaseT/233261521158?hash=item364f785906:g:brgAAOSwdcNdCReB but doubtless there are other cheaper ones if you look for them (eBay will only show me items that will ship to the UK, the way I have it set up).  But that's the kind of thing you're looking for, it will explicitly say 10Base2/10BaseT on it.

 

[davidg5678]

Thanks!

I just found this hub for sale in the US: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Used-3com-OfficeConnect-Hub-8C-3C16701A-8-Ports-External-Hub/293370705837?hash=item444e41b7ad:g:f6UAAOSwgeZd77rf

I think it is roughly the same 3Com model that you found in the UK, but far closer to me. Luckily, there are actually quite a lot of these hubs for sale on eBay -I just had to search for the exact model number instead of for media converters in general.

What else would I need to get this working? Would I only have to buy a BNC cable like this and connect it between the Macintosh and hub? Is it possible to connect this 3Com hub to my main LAN with an RJ45 cable between one of the ethernet ports on the 3Com and my router?

 

[cheesestraws]

I just found this hub for sale in the US

That looks like it would do very nicely, yes!  The manual for it is here, as far as I can see, and it talks about connecting things via 10Base2 http://pdfstream.manualsonline.com/2/27ec3c85-f5d6-42c9-a131-2a0313fdcd00.pdf.

Would I just need to buy a BNC cable

The cable you posted is RG-59, I believe you want RG-58 (which is 50 ohm cable, rather than 75 ohm cable).  You might need two T-pieces and terminators to kill off reflections, but with just two things plugged into each other you might be able to get away without that, so I'd try getting an RG-58 cable first and just try it.

Is it possible to connect this hub to my main LAN with any one of the ethernet ports

Yes, you should be able to.  The change between 10Base2 and 10BaseT is really a physical/analogue one, it doesn't muck about with the actual data at all.   So you're getting the same (Ethernet) bits flowing down your coax as you would down twisted-pair.  The only perhaps caveat is that I can't see in the manual whether or not that hub supports auto negotiation, so you might need to force the port on your switch/router to be 10mbit.  It'll be pretty obvious if that goes wrong, because it either won't work at all or the collision light will get jammed on whenever you try to use it.

You will be able to troubleshoot the link between the hub and the router easily, because the twisted-pair ports in that are forwards-compatible with most modern machines.  So you will probably be able to plug a more modern computer into your hub and get network access through it if that link is working, and it's probably worth verifying that that leg works before plugging your Mac in, simply to change as few variables at once.

Is this all making sense?

 

[davidg5678]

@cheesestraws Great! What you've said makes sense to me.

I just read the manual to the 3com hub, and I agree that I probably need another kind of cable, so I found a different 50ohm Coax BNC RG58 cable that looks promising on eBay. With any luck, I won't have to deal with terminators and such.

I'll try purchasing all of this stuff, and I will have to see how it works out. You have been very helpful! With a bit of luck, I will be on the internet soon. :lol:

 

[cheesestraws]

RG58A/U cable is, if memory serves, ideal.

Good luck!

 

[Bolle]

It looks like a breakout board from a later model MacCon should work with your card.

The MacCon outputs standard AUI to the breakout and the pinout for the AUI signals seems to match the one of the later cards as far as I can tell from the pictures.

What you can do as well is just get a standard AUI twisted pair receiver and wire that up to your card to connect straight to a modern ethernet router.

 

[davidg5678]

It looks like a breakout board from a later model MacCon should work with your card.

The MacCon outputs standard AUI to the breakout and the pinout for the AUI signals seems to match the one of the later cards as far as I can tell from the pictures.

What you can do as well is just get a standard AUI twisted pair receiver and wire that up to your card to connect straight to a modern ethernet router. 

Does this mean that I could replace the breakout board that came with my ethernet card with the new wifi breakout board you designed? If that is a possibility, it could also be a very interesting course of action after I set up coax!