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Gender fluid 3C527 and "2-1" IBM High Performance Ethernet LAN Adapter

ardent-blue

Experienced Member
Joined
Jan 2, 2015
Messages
461
http://ps-2.kev009.com/ohland/NIC/3com_527.html

Things are heating up. I think the "2-1" could be lit up if it has the EPROMs swapped with those from a 3C527. Hardware-wise, they match. Sordidly...

Attend my torrid logic...

From my horridly battered understanding of POS, the adapter card or device is disabled on boot. In turn, the system lightly brushes a kiss on each of the items in the resources section or in the named items. With this kiss, the function springs to life. Without it, that function stays in the land of Nod...

So, we have an AIX-flavored adapter, and the functions and diagnostics are listed in the AIX "ADF" and the AIX "DGS". There are probably two extra AIX functions supported by the "2-1" that the 3C527 has not implemented, data parity and selected feedback [error reporting].

The 3C527 does not implement those functions, so if you booted a "2-1" with 3C527 EPROMs, I'd think it would let those functions slumber on. The PS/2 won't see them, or complain about them. Since the 3C527 is not IBM, there is no DGS to complain.

Extra credit for an AIX Guru[ess] that pulls the ODM or whatever sections for the 2-1. One extra is the 2-1 has four 8Kx8 SRAM chips, but I'm not sure if that's a killer-diller.

I czeched my War Reserve stocks, did not see a 3C527 or "2-1", so I do not have the EPROMs.

Not sure how the IBM VPD ROM compares to the 3Com NMR, it is possumble any drivers won't care, either. The fields are the same, but some differ with VPD or NMR stuff.

PS. I do mean "czeched" and "possumble".
 
http://ps-2.kev009.com/ohland/NIC/3com_527.html

Updated page. I have pictures of the three 2-1 variants. My suspicion is that using the EPROMs of similar 3c527 variant would better match the 2-1 version they are close to. Take-away is that there is a possumbility that you need a similar version of a 3c527 to update a 2-1 from.

I think the 8A/10B/13B chips are related to the data parity / card error reporting functions of the 2-1. My SWAG is the 3c527 EPROMs won't look for these functions, and won't complain if the 2-1 is in a PS/2.
 
Was any progress ever made with this? I just recently acquired two "2-1" cards which will configure just fine with the reference disk, but I can not get the 3com NDIS driver to load on them. It bombs out with an error about unexpected POS registers. Also the 3C527.EXE diag utility will not detect a card.

I'd love to try burning some new EPROMS, anyone have the binaries from a real 3C527?
 
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