Asante NuBus AAUI-only card

[Heep]

Hey folks, first post here.

For about a year now I've been working in the office of a warehouse/trucking company. The warehouse here is chock full of old junk that I have a good time rifling through. One section of the warehouse is full of a big lot of old stock we bought in 2002 from a computer specialist (which was apparently an authorized Apple location) that was moving and didn't want to keep all the old stuff around. Some of this stuff was vintage even back then - I've even found a few LISA parts.

Anyways, I found a particular NUBUS card today that I'd not seen before, and strangely I can't find any pictures of online. The part number comes up dry in Google.

It's an Asante FNII (ST-NIC-VF) Nubus ethernet card, but it only has one AAUI port and nothing else. All the other Asante Nubus cards I've seen have other ports and an "MC***" part number.

Is this a common part that I'm just not managing to find online for some reason, or is this an oddball?

Pictures below...

Cheers,

Mark

 

[~Coxy]

My guess would be that this card is definetely an oddball model, for I too have never seen a card like this. Perhaps it was a card made for "OEM" purposes, where you'd get a machine with eternet but only in the form of AAUI, to appease Apple by not adding additional functionality and necessitating the purchase of one of their expensive transcievers?

:lisa: But now I really am speculating.

 

[~Coxy]

This site shows pics of a ST-NIC-VF, but a Rev C2 that has a more usual complement of ports:

http://www.recycledgoods.com/products/Asante-MC3NB-Mac-Ethernet-Card-%28ST-NIC-VF%29.html

Looking at the documentation and promotional material for the Asante MacCon cards, I can only find mention of Thick+Thin, RJ-45+Thin, or RJ-45+Thick+Thin models.

 

[macgreg]

I have at least one of these in my shed of random bits (pretty sure it is an Asante, definitely only has AAUI).

I guess the theory could have been you only needed to buy a new transceiver for your card if you upgraded your network (from 10Base2 to 10BaseT for instance).

 

[MidnightCommando]

That's an Asante FriendlyNet II.

I have the transceiver that goes with it in my hands as we speak. The transceiver, for some odd reason, has a second LED in addition to activity - it has a "Link Integrity" indicator. God knows why.

Can't tell you if it's oddball or rare, I've only got the transceiver and never met the card itself (transceiver was on the back of a Power Mac with AAUI!) but it should be fine to work with.

 

[~Coxy]

Indeed, I guess it's not so rare after all!

Here's a very useful webpage I just stumbled upon with nice, clear black and white illustrations of many network cards, covering the interfaces, output LEDs and input jumpers/switches on each:

http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/network-cards/netnub_1.html

 

[Heep]

Wow, awesome...thanks for the info and link, MidnightCommando and ~Coxy!