Struggling to connect ethernet on my iisi

[Schmooves1]

When I picked up my IIsi from an estate sale I got super lucky and it came with a Asante ethernet card. Unfortunately I've had trouble getting it working. I'm running system 7.1 with the (Gold Master) open transport 1.3, have the proper drivers installed for the card, and have set the port on my home router to 10baseT and half-duplex. When I plug in my ethernet cable the green led flashes but the other one doesn't turn on, and any internet connected application times out. I know it's connected in some way at least, because when I manually set it's IP address to the same as another device on my network (and only when I do this) I get an error message telling me that there's an IP conflict with another device on the network.
Is there anything obvious I'm missing? I'm still really new to this retro computing hobby so it wouldn't be the first time.

 

[Byte Knight]

When I picked up my IIsi from an estate sale I got super lucky and it came with a Asante ethernet card. Unfortunately I've had trouble getting it working. I'm running system 7.1 with the (Gold Master) open transport 1.3, have the proper drivers installed for the card, and have set the port on my home router to 10baseT and half-duplex. When I plug in my ethernet cable the green led flashes but the other one doesn't turn on, and any internet connected application times out. I know it's connected in some way at least, because when I manually set it's IP address to the same as another device on my network (and only when I do this) I get an error message telling me that there's an IP conflict with another device on the network.
Is there anything obvious I'm missing? I'm still really new to this retro computing hobby so it wouldn't be the first time.

Sometimes old Ethernet cards won't communicate with newer routers. If your Ethernet card has an AUI port, get a Cisco 2500 Series AUI Transceiver (or something similar) and hook it into your network that way. I've had to do that with several of my Ethernet cards and then they work fine.

 

[Schmooves1]

I ended up ordering a transceiver like that after I made this post the other night--super glad to hear it worked for you! Gives me hope it'll solve my problem.

 

[flo]

As far as I know, Open Transport was introduced with System 7.5. I wonder if it actually works with older versions of MacOS? Have you tried the pre-OT networking that came with 7.1, like MacTCP? (But that does not seem to explain the IP address collision observation...)

 

[cheesestraws]

have set the port on my home router to 10baseT and half-duplex

Don't force speed and duplex unless you actually need to: try it without first. Only some early ethernet NICs require it, and if you do it at one end with a card with working autoneg, you will also need to fix it at the other.

 

[joshc]

I wonder if it actually works with older versions of MacOS?

Open Transport works with earlier System 7 versions as well.

 

[Mk.558]

7.1 is the earliest you can install OT on.

MacTCP works fine for most cases. You only really want OT if you want to connect to 10.3 or 10.4. Otherwise, if you're doing FTP or something, MacTCP is fine and I would recommend that instead.

Your router may have an option for setting the speed of a specific port. Older macs like these can basically only use 10BASE-T half duplex. You could also use a Linux box or OS X machine which can set the speed of the Ethernet port that way.

If you get a box that speaks AUI, then you will need an AUI drop cable. Those are not exactly cheap, and the way that AUI cables are secured is best described as "mediocre". You could just use a normal DB15 cable.

Depending on the card, there's a guy on Tinker Different who knows more about these things than I do. He could probably pick out a resistor you could swap out that will make it work fine, like you can do with the Asante NuBUS cards.

 

[cheesestraws]

Older macs like these can basically only use 10BASE-T half duplex.

This isn't totally true, it depends upon the NIC. Most post-standardisation NICs (designed later than 1991ish) will autonegotiate fine. The NIC in my IIsi is fine.

If you get a box that speaks AUI, then you will need an AUI drop cable.

AUI drop cables are only relevant for 10Base5 networks, and nobody here is suggesting that. A 10BaseT AUI MAU is more to the point, and will probably mitigate any autonegotiate problems also.

You could just use a normal DB15 cable.

No, don't do this. The cable would at least have to swap the RX/TX in the AUI connector, kind of like a UTP crossover cable - I don't know what happens if you just string a straight through DB15 cable between two MACs with AUI in the back, but it certainly won't work.

(edit: realised I was ambiguous: by MAC I mean Medium Access Controller, the layer 2 half of the MAC/PHY combo, not Mac as in Macintosh. The MAC is, confusingly, in the Mac; the PHY is in the AUI MAU.)

 

[Mk.558]

This isn't totally true, it depends upon the NIC. Most post-standardisation NICs (designed later than 1991ish) will autonegotiate fine. The NIC in my IIsi is fine.

...true to an extent I'd argue? You'd probably know more than I do. However I wasn't referring to whether they'd be compatible with Auto MDI but rather what they can actually handle. I don't know if if a 68030 box can handle 10BASE-T full duplex.

The reason I'm suggesting an AUI drop cable is because of this:



It physically cannot touch the AUI port. The Farallon AUI two-port adapter doesn't have that problem because it has a ~1 meter long cable attached to it. The same thing applies to the SE and SE/30 because the expansion slot opening in the case doesn't permit a MAU like that to snap right on in unless it's a low profile unit that can go in there. Even then it can get whacked easily.

I got curious about the AUI drop cable being crossover or not. From poking around, Wikipedia has a pinout for the DB15 AUI port, but there's nothing I found that suggests they are crossover. I don't own a AUI cable, they're like 30 bones new, ebay might have some under "AUI transciever cable", idk there wasn't much there for cables. I did find this post on stackexchange which seems credible, but not verified as I wasn't able to find any other information.

 

[Byte Knight]

It physically cannot touch the AUI port. The Farallon AUI two-port adapter doesn't have that problem because it has a ~1 meter long cable attached to it. The same thing applies to the SE and SE/30 because the expansion slot opening in the case doesn't permit a MAU like that to snap right on in unless it's a low profile unit that can go in there. Even then it can get whacked easily.

I just popped the case off of my transceiver to fit it into my AUI port of my Ethernet card. It's a little precarious but it works...

 

[cheesestraws]

The reason I'm suggesting an AUI drop cable is because of this:

Ohhh, right. Now I understand. Sorry, yes, I completely misunderstood you here - I thought you were talking about drop cables as in 10Base5, where you have a drop cable between the tap and the AUI port. Didn't occur to me that the Nubus backplanes are recessed. Fair point, well made.

Please then ignore my comments on crossover: I thought you were using an AUI cable to connect two machines/pieces of network equipment with AUI ports on. A box-to-transceiver extension cable obviously does not need to be crossover, you are correct.

 

[finkmac]

It physically cannot touch the AUI port. The Farallon AUI two-port adapter doesn't have that problem because it has a ~1 meter long cable attached to it. The same thing applies to the SE and SE/30 because the expansion slot opening in the case doesn't permit a MAU like that to snap right on in unless it's a low profile unit that can go in there. Even then it can get whacked easily.

This Centrecom (210TS) unit is pretty common:

I have several of these.

Moreover, the regular ones will work fine on the rear of an SE[/30].. the AUI ports on those ethernet cards aren't recessed enough to necessitate the slimmer front.

 

[Mk.558]

This Centrecom (210TS) unit is pretty common:
...

Really? Huh, yeah I saw those a bit after I bought mine, and wished I bought that kind instead. Here's what mine does:



Maybe I got a discount model? It's just an Asante MacCon.

 

[finkmac]

maybe i'm misremembering. I swear I've used the regular sort on my SE/30.