PC Nau boards for Starlan

[John Breeden]

In article <1990Sep24.202729.19445 at eng.umd.edu> green at eng.umd.edu (Michael D. Green) writes:
>
>I am in the process of ordering a 386 clone to put on our Starlan
>10BaseT network. The PC network board costs $320 from AT&T but I
>understand that Starlan will run on 3Com boards and others. Does
>anyone know the specifics on which boards are compatible, I'm
>wondering if I can get it cheaper out on the street. I need twisted
>pair incidentally.
>Thanks
>

I assume you are trying to run StarGroup 3.3 software (Lan Manager/X). If
that's so, yes you can run it on any ethernet card that supports NDIS (3Com
IS one of them). If you are running StarGroup 3.2, you HAVE to run Starlan
cards, there are no drivers for other cards (and, by the way, SG 3.3 comes
with the NDIS drivers for the 3Com card).

If you look for "street" prices, you'll find that both Starlan and 3Com 305/TP
cards are about the same price (at least here on the west coast).

Two words of warning, stick with "mainstream" cards (AT&T, 3Com, WD etc), off
brand cards can cause all kinds of headaches.

If you get a clone, make sure you get a "money back guarantee", I've seen alot
of clones with "off-the-wall" bios' that work just fine as stanalone PCs but
fail as network devices. Hell even some namebrands (like Zenith).


-- 
 John Robert Breeden, 
 netcom!jbreeden at apple.com, apple!netcom!jbreeden, ATTMAIL:!jbreeden
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