PCMCIA Ethernet card
13 messages in this thread
Malcolm,
OK, here's the info on the PCMCIA Ethernet Card:
The company name is D-Link, and the PCMCIA Ethernet card is a DE-650. It
draws power from the PCMCIA slot, and, since it appears to be targeted at
notebook computers, I'd guess that power consumption would be
appropriately low. Couplers for Thin Ethernet and Twisted-Pair are
available.
Model information:
DE-650 – PCMCIA Ethernet Card
DE-651 – PCMCIA Ethernet 10 Base 2 media coupler
DE-653 – PCMCIA Ethernet 10 BaseT media coupler
DE-650C – PCMCIA Ethernet w/10 Base 2 media coupler
DE-650T – PCMCIA Ethernet w/10 BaseT media coupler
Company information:
D-Link
5 Musick
Irvine, CA 92718
714-455-1688
714-455-2521 (FAX)
800-326-1688
in U.K. – (081) 203-9900
in Germany – (49) 6196-643011
I'd appreciate hearing what you find out re: price & availability.
btw – This info is from a PC Products Supplement to the November 15, 1992
issue of "DATAMATION" magazine. Across the page, there's a short blurb
entitled "Amiga Goes Multimedia". It's about the A3000T/040, and says,
among other things, "The vendor rates the Amiga 3000T's Motorola 68040
processor – which has an integrated math coprocessor – at 20 million
Customer Information Control System (CISC) instructions per second." (I'm
not kidding!)
David
Looks like a writer or editor at Datamation looked up "CISC" in their "Data
Processing Dictionary." 🙂
These PCMCIA Ethernet cards may exist, but that's no guarantee they'll ever
work on an Amiga. This reminds me of the parallel port Ethernet adapters.
Until someone writes a driver for them, they're just curiousities. CBM's
SANA-II standard either makes this situation better or worse, depending on
how you look at it. On the bright side, if someone writes one, it will
work wi^O
rtn
John,
Except that the guy who looked it us must have been a bit dyslexic. 8)
David
John,
If we write a SANA-II driver for it, will your stuff talk to it?
David,
Thanks a lot! I recently saw an D-Link ad. Think it was in my own
publication! I'll have to see if I can find it.
CISC: Don't you hate it when writers don't know what they're talking
about. 🙂
Malcolm
Malcolm,
You're quite welcome. 8)
The writer/editor's error may turn out to be a blessing in disguise. I
suspect that Datamation readers might be a lot more interested in a $6000
multimedia computer that would do 20 million CICS transactions/second. 😉
Of course, I wouldn't want to be the person on the other end of the line
at C=. Hope that they've got a good sales pitch ready! (big 😉
David
Before anyone rushes out to buy PCMCIA cards, I'd like to point one thing
out — there are 3 different sizes of the things: 3mm, 5mm and 10mm.
The PCMCIA 1.0 standard called for 5-volt, 3 mm cards. The PCMCIA 2.0
standard changes to voltage to 3-volts and introduces full-sized (5mm) and
double-wide (10 mm) cards.
PCMCIA (if I am not mistaken) first boots in a 5-volt mode and checks the
card. If it is a 5-volt card it continues, but if not, it changes to
3-volt power then continues (thus allowing old cards to work with new
machines).
The card's edge connector is 3 mm on all cards, so 3 mm cards will *fit*
in 5 mm and 10 mm slots. (Whether they work or not depends on the
manufacturer.) The 5 mm and 10 mm sizes were to give enough room for
standard (RJ-11,thinnet, etc.) connectors to be put on.
I don't know what size the slots on the A600 and A1200 are, but I'd check
before buying an ethernet card (probably 10 mm) and finding out there is
only a 5 mm slot on the A1200/A600.
Byte magazine's latest issue has a nice article on PCMCIA (including
outlining the standards, pin-outs, size specs, etc.
-Chas
CH: The PCMCIA 1.0 standard called for 5-volt, 3 mm cards. The PCMCIA
CH: 2.0 standard changes to voltage to 3-volts and introduces full-sized
CH: (5mm) anddouble-wide (10 mm) cards.
The A600/1200 use the PCMCIA 2.0, standard.
Ron.
– ap'ing with AP. (Eagles may fly, but weasles aren't sucked
into jet engines.)
The Thinnet card I saw at InterOp (Fall `92) was a 3mm card with an
external "box" containing the actual net cable. Mostly because most of the
notebooks with PCMCIA slots use the 3mm version.
Brian — Cruising on AutoPilot…..
Are you sure it was a 3mm version, not 5mm? From what I've seen, most of
the non-memory cards are using the 5mm thickness. That size is usable in
all PCMCIA slots.
Mike
It was 3mm. Most of the notebooks coming out nowadays use 3mm slots. The
trick is that the ethernet card has a little "box" that plugs into the
card to provide the connections to a Thinnet cable.
Brian — Cruising on AutoPilot…..
In terms of getting into the slots, any card which conforms to the PCMCIA
2.0 standard can be up to 5 mm thick. At least according to what I've read.
The 3mm spec was originally for PCMCIA 1.0 which was for memory cards only.
As far as I'm concerned, it's great (and amazing) that it can fit in a card
that thin.
I HOPE that the appropriate software gets written so that cards other than
memory cards can be used with the Amiga.
Mike