bfl250@csc.anu.oz (10/03/89)
We have just started putting in a TCP/IP network in our department and we have had some quotes for Western Digital Ethernet cards that we don't understand. One supplier quoted us $540 for a Western Digital WD8003E controller while another supplier gave us a quote of only $350 for what he called a EtherCard Plus. He assures us that the two cards are the same thing but we aren't sure given the great difference in price. So can someone tell me if these two cards are one and the same thing? Thanks in advance, Barbara La Scala | bfl250@csc.anu.oz Statistics Research Section | Australian National University |
SYST8107@RYERSON.BITNET (Ken Woo) (10/04/89)
The Western Digital WD8003E and the EtherCard Plus are the same thing. The five hundred odd dollars for it is a little pricey though, $350.00 is not bad.
german@UXH.CSO.UIUC.EDU (Gregory German) (10/05/89)
There are many versions of the card. Here is a year old list I came up with
from Sept. 1988:
Part# Name Description Type RAM ROM List Price
WDLAN-EPR F001 EtherCard PLUS WD8003E BNC 8 no $399
WDLAN-EPB F001 EtherCard PLUS WD8003EBT BNC 8/32 yes $399
WDLAN-EP/A F001 EtherCard PLUS/A WD8003ET/A BNC 16 yes $499 (for MCA)
WDLAN-ETP F001 EtherCard PLUS TP WD8003WT UTP 8/32 yes $499
Like I said these are over a year old and things have changed some. I
also agree that you might be getting gouged a little on price. If you
buy them 100+ at a time you can get near or under $200 per card for the
$399 list cards.
Type indicates what besides the 15-pin "thick" connector comes with this
card. BNC indicates an onboard "thin" transceiver, and UTP is for the
10BaseT draft standard for ethernet on Unshielded Twisted-Pair.
RAM is the number of Kbytes of buffer memory. The first number is what
comes with the card and the second number is the maxium.
ROM indicates the availability of a ROM socket for use with a boot PROM.
Greg German (german@sonne.CSO.UIUC.EDU) (217-333-8293)
US Mail: Univ of Illinois, CSO, 1304 W Springfield Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
Office: 129 Digital Computer Lab., Network Design Officeddp+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Drew Daniel Perkins) (10/09/89)
At Interop, Western Digital was displaying their new boards. They have a new rev of their 8-bit board the WD8003EBT (I think that's the right number). They redesigned the board with an ASIC (or two). If I remember right, there are only about 5 chips (ASIC, NatSemi chips and RAM)! I heard that the board was selling for $80 in quantity. I'll bet we start seeing them sell for < $125 pretty soon... Drew