Hi David.
>> 1. You refer to an "NE2000" card. Presumably you're aware that
>> those normally don't work in an XT as they require an AT style
>> connector and the similar NE1000 card with its XT style
>> connector has to be used instead.
> Firstly, 16-bit cards can work in 8-bit slots.
^^^
Can, yes - but in my experience, NE2000-clone network cards NORMALLY
do NOT work in 8-bit slots. I've used 16-bit 3COM network cards in
8-bit slots quite successfully, but never NE2000 cards.
> I've used 16-bit network cards, video cards, IDE cards (on a 486
> board), etc in 8-bit slots without problems.
So have I - but I've never managed to get NE2000-clone cards to work
in 8-bit slots. As far as I'm aware, those and hard drive controllers
are the only 16-bit cards that won't work in an XT.
>> 2. Several people refer to reading from the ROM to positively ID
>> the card. My network consists entirely of NE1000 and NE2000
>> cards, none of which have any ROM on board, and all are working
>> fine. As a result, I would consider ANY code that relies on the
>> contents of those non-existant ROMs to be highly suspect.
> The 'ROM' is the ROM on the card. ie. the part of the card that
> holds information such as the ethernet address, and the protocol
> information for sending an ethernet frame.
I stand corrected here - apparently, there's a serial PROM on most
network cards that I hadn't noticed, and that's what was being
referred to in the various quotes...
Best wishes from Riley.
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| There is something frustrating about the quality and speed of Linux |
| development, ie., the quality is too high and the speed is too high, |
| in other words, I can implement this XXXX feature, but I bet someone |
| else has already done so and is just about to release their patch. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
* ftp://ftp.MemAlpha.cx/pub/rhw/Linux
* http://www.MemAlpha.cx/kernel.versions.html
