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8/16bit nics in xt era pc's + net

E

Elvi

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Nov 23, 2011
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Munsala, Finland
This thread http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?30209-FTP-s-PC-TPC-for-Dos got me thinking if i were to setup a network on my old samsun spc3000 turbo xt pc and use mTCP, mostly out of curiousity, doubt i've ever been on the net with a dos pc before, nothing i can remember anyway, yeah i've been on the net with a 486 and win3.11 but that's as far as i've been.

Now i don't know what cards there are out there but i have a few but most of them are 16bit isa and i have no idea if any of them have 8bit modes so they could run on the XT then i found this litle thing in my stach http://electricdreams.ath.cx/card/gatewaygethernet.php?current=3&s2=1
problem is i don't know if it works or if there are any drivers for it however i do have a bnc to rj45 adapter and some hubs that can do that if i manage to get it on the network.

anyone have any ideas on these old things OR know of a dos driver for this particular card THAT works on ms-dos 3.3a that i've installed on that pc?
 
That card looked awfully familiar - much like my NE1000 cards. The 8390 is the important part - that is the chipset that was used. A few manufacturers used that chipset, so do a little more digging to find out which specific manufacturer made yours. Ultimately you need to find a packet driver for it.

There has been lots of discussion on 8 bit vs. 16 bit Ethernet cards on the forum already. Search back through the archives.

Lastly, the mTCP wiki has a page on tested machines. Any of the 8 bit cards listed there would be safe:



And of course if you get your card working, it should be added to that page.

If you don't want to mess with the BNC adapter look for an AUI transceiver. The big port on the back is the AUI port and it can be used with an external transceiver like the Centrecom 210 to connect you to a modern twisted pair network using the familiar RJ45 jacks and plugs. (Somebody was just offering one on the forum recently.)

BTW, is it this card: http://www.angelfire.com/mn2/daveandkay/n/txt/40142.txt


Mike
 
Thanks, i've bearly found any info on that card as it is but i guess gateway made it :p and yeah the driver is gonna be the hassle.

I've almost found nothing when it comes to the descussions on the 8 vs 16bit nic stuff, if it's here i guess i'm using the wrong search phrases.

The samsung is just a ordenary xt turbo clone, it even looks very similair to a dell i found on here somewhere, it can run at either 4.77 or 10mhz with a fujitsu 8088.

Oh using an BNC adaptor is nothing, i've done it before and it works :)
 
Didn't notice that edit you made but i can't see any fujitsu or national chips on it and the jumpers don't seem to match up + that this card has that switch block.


Edit
actually it maybe is that card anyway as i looked at this link and it's similair http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/network...ICATIONS-INC-Ethernet-G-EtherNet-8-A-196.html but where it says jp1-6 there is a jp block missing on that page, theres 4 jumpers before it too and the switchblock has 8 switches not 6
 
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so um... i should use both those zip in there right? if that's so, any ideas on setting it up? asking cause i'm not very used to dos based network
 
ok i understand next to nothing of this, been trying to get that card working and i don't even know if it is, tried the getcp drive from ftp://oxygene.ibspan.waw.pl/pub/mirr...e/NET/GATEWAY/ on there i find a ge08tcp.com file that seems to fit BUT the are no instructions so i just run it and well... it prints a few lines but nothing saying much then ends and i try the dhcp in mtcp, tried configuring it and such but it can't find anything.

edit:
ok this gave someting ge08tcp 0x60 3 2a0 cc000

ABORTED GE08DOD NIC command port failed to respond

ideas?
 
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not having much luck with that gateway nic and i have no other 8bit isa nic's at all.
partly sucessfull though, put it in a 486 pc, set it so it wouldn't collide with stuff and actually got win95c to recognise it as NE1000 comptable but it's here the fun stops, i couldn't get it to get any ip via dhcp anyway and at first win didn't even install tcp/ip just netbui and ipx.
 
Remember that Win95 will make a guess on ISA NICs regarding resources. Most often, it's wrong. So edit the port and IRQ if necessary in Control Panel->System.
 
okay think i'll give up on the 8bit nic atm as it's driving me insane, so tried 2 d-links i had around, a de-220ect and de-250, first thing i did was try them both in a 486 pc with win95c and both worked even in a 8bit slot though the 220 reported 16bit even there while the 250 reported 8bit in it's setup program but as soon as i put the 250 in the xt all hell brakes loose, freezes up at getting ip, can only get irq 3,4 and 5 for the card via the setup and 5 is used and i guess 3 and 4 also via serial or so so i thought take that i/o card out and it would help, nope still freezing on trying to get an ip.

the 220 works beter, set it the same irq and i/o, 3/300 and try with that, ne2000.com sees it and gives it's mac but there just is no activity on the bnc plug according to my hub bah..., also tried irq 4 but it was the same and yet these worked in the 486 pc :(.

irq's these cards supported 3-5, 9-10 but only 1-7 is usable with ne2000.com.

i have other 16bit cards but no setup apps sigh this isn't looking good, could my samsung spc3000v be having some problems? like when i tried to set it's localization in ms-dos 3.3a it froze up the keyboard but the screen still blinked...

only switches there are on the mobo pokes out the back and i have no idea what these do, computer is similair to a dell i saw somewhere here so i guess it's a clone, same case, similair mobo maybe same and so on...

HALP! *steaming ears*
 
would you look at that, i have the pc online and it's working nicelly with a Kingston EtheRx KNE2021LC 16bit card in a 8bit plug.
it works fine on the settings irq 3, i/o 300 and i managed to find a driver disk via the net for this card that had the setup program with it so i could look around in the settings, to my surprice the card has auto sensing on bnc and rj45.

the tricky part was to figure out the packet driver as the ne2000.com i got just refused to work with any card and it also froze the pc literary.
but there was a kingston packet driver on the diskette that worked nicelly called ktc2000p.com, i didn't even have to put in the soft i/o or anything it just knew, 0x60, 0x3 and 0x300, tried the dhcp from mtcp and yehaa an ip :D

here's a shot of the happening when i tests ircjr 18042012268.jpg
 
Nice that you got your network setup to work! Is there a respitory for proprietary packet drivers so those of us who have our "own" drivers could semi-legally share, beyond those available at Crynwr?
 
I've been working on that ... I've got a reasonable collection so far, but I've not had the time to post it.

Here is one that is available today: http://www.georgpotthast.de/sioux/packet.htm

I'm not too concerned about sharing device drivers - you need the original hardware for them to be useful. That makes it hard to claim that the original manufacturer is being harmed by the distribution of the device driver.
 
so i got the right localization on the keyboard with keyb su,, c:\dos\keyboard.sys in autoexec.bat but now i face another odd problem, when that line loads i can no longer jump between 4.77 and 10mhz cpu modes with the keys ctrl + alt + minus/plus, that only way i can get it into turbo mode is to do the sequense before anything loads off the hd, any ideas?
 
Have you tried CTRL + ALT + some other key that maps in the same physical location where + and - keys normally reside on an US/UK keyboard? Do you have a numeric keyboard, and would the turbo mode switch work as well with the + and - on the numeric keyboard?
 
seems the us layout is similair to swedish and finnish when it comes to + and -, only used + and - on the numpad but it didn't react to trying the keys near backspace either after the localization is loaded.
 
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