Kinetics Etherport SE Ethernet Adapter

[PotatoFi]

My good friend @sclements sent me a box that was SUPPOSED to have just an Apple CD-ROM drive... but included some other awesome goodies. One of the notable ones was this, a Kinetics Etherport SE Ethernet adapter! Also includes was a CentreCOM 210T Twisted Pair Transceiver, which plugs into the AUI interface on the Kinetics.



I'd also like to note that while the controller card says "Kinetics", the expansion card that goes on the back of the Mac says "Shiva".

There's a but of surface rust around the AUI and BNC connectors, so I decided to scrub at it with some isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs a bit.



Okay, that helped a little bit. It's certainly cleaner now. If you have any ideas about how to get this rust really cleaned off, I'm open to advice. I can't really take it apart anymore.



Now, it's time to take apart my Macintosh SE FDHD! This is my "original" compact black-and-white Mac, the first I ever received and restored. It's still my "best" machine, boasting 4 MB of RAM and a SCSI2SD 5.1b. Sadly, this Ethernet adapter will displace the 3D printed backed for the SCSI2SD, so I'm going to have to figure out where to move it to. I'm thinking that I'll design and 3D-print a bracket to put it where the hard drive used to be.



Next, I pulled out the logic board, and slotted the Etherport into the PDS slot. Unfortunately, this is where I had to stop for the night, as I need some plastic standoffs to properly mount the Etherport to the logic board.



I measured the distance between the boards, and it looks to be 16mm. So I need to either 3D-print or source standoffs. I'll update the thread when I do!

 

[ArmorAlley]

I have one of these in my SE. I may drivers for it if you have no luck finding them.

 

[PotatoFi]

I have one of these in my SE. I may drivers for it if you have no luck finding them.

Thanks ArmorAlley! I have located a driver package at VintageApple.org, but I haven't tried it yet. It's an 800k HQX so it will take a bit of work to get it over to my machine.

The very first thing I did was design and 3D print some plastic standoffs. The inner diameter is just large enough for an M3 to cut threads, so there's an M3 on each end. They only reason I did this is that I don't have a supply of nylon standoffs.



I was a bit worried about keying for the ribbon cable, but Sam pointed out that red always goes to Pin 1, and "P1" is clearly marked on both boards.



Since my SCSI2SD 5.0b has to be moved from the expansion slot, I decided to design and print up a new bracket for it:



Everything fit perfectly, until I realized that the SCSI connect was oriented incorrectly, and the stock cable isn't long enough to reach if you have to put a single twist in it. Ultimately, I ended up tearing it back down and flipping the whole bracket and SCSI2SD over, which then meant that the LED cable was too short... but at this point, I just wanted to get it up and running, so I used the extension wires from the last mounting location for the LED. I think I'll try to redesign this mount at some point, so you don't have to use an extension cable. Not sure yet.



Everything installed. You can see how the SCSI2SD bracket is now "upside down".



And here's the transceiver connected! It was pretty late by this point, so I tried plugging it in to see if it would "just work"... no luck. Tonight, I'll get software for it and see if it all works!

 

[ArmorAlley]

This looks good. I'm at the stage where I can set the time with the Network Time control panel in System 6 (so it can get online), but I can't yet see any of the macs on the LAN.

 

[SE30_Neal]

I have one of those twisted pair adaptors and a full shiver card so slightly different setup that said I needed the driver as well as a half duplex switch to get my se/30 networked and online. These are old cards with obsolete protocols so it simply wouldn’t work directly from my modern router.

neal

 

[PotatoFi]

These are old cards with obsolete protocols so it simply wouldn’t work directly from my modern router.

I've heard some people suggest that newer hardware might not speak half-duplex 10 Mbps Ethernet... but I've had good luck with both my Cisco SG300-10P and my Ubiquiti UniFi In-Wall HD (which has an integrated 4-port switch). I think I also had success with a Linksys WRT54G. I would recommend trying a few unmanaged switches, you can probably find one that speaks half-duplex 10 Mbps pretty fast.

 

[SE30_Neal]

I've heard some people suggest that newer hardware might not speak half-duplex 10 Mbps Ethernet... but I've had good luck with both my Cisco SG300-10P and my Ubiquiti UniFi In-Wall HD (which has an integrated 4-port switch). I think I also had success with a Linksys WRT54G. I would recommend trying a few unmanaged switches, you can probably find one that speaks half-duplex 10 Mbps pretty fast.

I moved into a new built house and that came with fibre to the house itself and a Huawei fibre router built in and that simply wouldn’t work for me on my older macs but I did find a relatively cheap 4 way half duplex switch from ebay for £12 and than run that from a mains ethernet extender to my computer room and that worked a treat but it sounds like you have a few options already.
make sure the switch on the back plate is switched correctly to the twisted pair connector.