[comp.protocols.appletalk] ethernet board for MAC II

liam@cs.qmw.ac.uk (William Roberts) (01/31/90)

In article <5646@ncrcae.Columbia.NCR.COM> wingo@ncrcae.Columbia.NCR.COM (Dave Wingo) writes:
>Can anyone give me the model number of the Kinetics Ethernet controller
>for the MAC II. I an interested in purchasing one. Cost estimates would also
>be appreciated. Also is this a good Ethernet card or are there betters one
>I should be looking at????

This card works OK (we have 50 Mac IIs with Kinetics EtherPort
II cards), but it isn't very suitable for use with A/UX because
the initialisation routine on the NuBus card sets the card to
generate NuBus interrupts immediately. Under MacOS this is not
a problem because the driver on the card is installed at the
same time, but under A/UX the kernel may need to autoconfigure
before it has an appropriate interrupt handler installed. Sure
enough, if you try to autoconfigure an A/UX kernel on a machine
with an EtherPort II card which is connected to an active
Ethernet, the whole thing fails in a withering hail of NuBus
interrupts (too many War Comics as a child!).

Comment from the Kinetics people who read this newsgroup?
-- 

William Roberts                 ARPA: liam@cs.qmw.ac.uk
Queen Mary & Westfield College  UUCP: liam@qmw-cs.UUCP
Mile End Road                   AppleLink: UK0087
LONDON, E1 4NS, UK              Tel:  01-975 5250 (Fax: 01-980 6533)