PCMCIA Ethernet

Frootloop · 18 August 2003, 04:29

I finally got my Kingston PCMCIA Ethernet card from the post office and set it up this afternoon. I had a bit of a problem getting MiamiInit to locate the DNS servers so I had to skip that part and enter the servers manually in Miami (entering the names manually in MiamiInit didn't work for some reason.)

The card works great so far, I've only tested out AmFTP and AmIRC, but I'm eager to try and gets my disks over to CAPs.

So, anyway, if you're looking for a card that works with your A1200, the Kingston model listed in the cnetdevice.lha (Aminet) compatability list works just fine. Oh yes, I did have to remove and re-insert the card when I first powered up the Amiga but that's not a big problem and there's a program on Aminet that will apparently fix that problem if you put it in your startup-sequence. (Sorry, don't have the name off hand.)

The only thing I hate is the 1 hour Miami time-limit. Someone told me that it's no longer being sold but their web site is still running so I'm not sure...

Echo · 18 August 2003, 12:34

I'm going to go ahead with the dabs.com value PCMCIA NIC since I can never find cards on the compatibility list for sale.

Does this description sound okay (I don't even know what type 2/3 is, and which the A1200 has)?

Quote:

Now, connecting your notebook to the network is just a snap away with Edimax's credit card size PCMCIA Fast Ethernet adapter - EP-410x. It is designed for Type II and Type III PCMCIA - compliant notebooks. This adapter takes full advantage of the power of high performance, 16-bit architecture mobile PCs. Full/half duplex operation is auto-detected. In full-duplex, the notebook is connected to a switch on a dedicated segment. With transmission and reception taking place simultaneously, data transfer is double. Simply plug in this adapter to your notebook's PCMCIA slot. And your notebook PC will be up and running on the network. That's all you need to do. Not a tool is necessary, not a configuration setting is required. This simple installation backed up by high quality and low cost makes the EP-410x the most popular one in the market. Whatever your requirements are - ease of installation, compatibility with all major network software, energy saving green card, or superior services, EP-410x is the superior choice for your notebook.

fiath · 18 August 2003, 12:55

As long as it is NE2000 compliant, it should work fine.

Echo · 18 August 2003, 13:13

I'll report back whether successful or not, because this is a nice cheap card (£13 inc VAT) if anyone else is looking to network their Amiga

ant512 · 18 August 2003, 14:36

If you're really stuck, you could always dig out the new 3Com PCMCIA driver from the Aminet and look at its compatibility list. The cards in there should be easier to get hold of.

Incidentally, Kingston have stopped manufacturing network cards now, so they're difficult to get hold of.

Echo · 18 August 2003, 19:07

Does Miami include something that can emulate "client for Microsoft networks" ?

I'll be connecting the card to my router, which serves broadband Internet to all computers and also acts as a central location to enable file/print sharing.

So it's actually more use to me having filesharing than pure web access on the Amiga.

ant512 · 19 August 2003, 09:41

You need SMBFS.lha from the Aminet. It mounts remote shared directories as volumes or devices, so you can access them as easily as you access RAM: or DF0:.

Echo · 19 August 2003, 11:14

Thanks Ant, I'll get that and keep it in preparation for installation

Echo · 22 August 2003, 21:04

Little joy with this card it seems

I can eject/reinsert the card all I like, it doesn't want to be picked up. Doing this also causes the hd to 're-initialise', resulting in a lock next time I try to access it.

cardpatch runs but doesn't help. cardreset fails unless I use the force switch, and then it doesn't help.

The utility in the cnet.device package can't even find a card, I've put the cnet.device in devs anyway in case it might help.

Stupid waste of money, Amigas were just not meant for networking.

ant512 · 23 August 2003, 14:09

Quote:

Originally posted by Echo
Little joy with this card it seems

I can eject/reinsert the card all I like, it doesn't want to be picked up. Doing this also causes the hd to 're-initialise', resulting in a lock next time I try to access it.

cardpatch runs but doesn't help. cardreset fails unless I use the force switch, and then it doesn't help.

The utility in the cnet.device package can't even find a card, I've put the cnet.device in devs anyway in case it might help.

The card isn't compatible. There's nothing you can do about this - Commodore implemented the PCMCIA-II slot before the standard was finalised, making it incompatible with 70% of all PCMCIA network cards and hit-and-miss with everything else. I have four PCMCIA network cards, and two work with the Amiga (though one hasn't got the card-to-RJ45 cable, so I can't use it); I've also got three PCMCIA RAM cards and only one works with the Amiga.

The Kingston card currently being discussed in another thread (KNE-2T, or something) *does* work with the Amiga - I've got one here.

Echo · 23 August 2003, 15:23

It's very frustrating, because whenever a card crops up that is compatible, it's impossible to get hold of the identical model from a distributor.

Kingston don't even make network cards anymore so I'm stumped on that brand too.

Akira · 23 August 2003, 17:55

Use ebay dude. I'm looking for used cars over there that are compatible and you can find plenty. Heck, if I found a couple of them locally, I bet overseas you are bound to find many more.

oh lookie here:
http://www.farallon.com/support/all/...001-10-19.html

Echo · 23 August 2003, 20:50

Shite, wish I'd known that. I was fully aware the card was 32 bit but took for granted that A1200s could use them.

Thanks for the link.

Akira · 23 August 2003, 23:07

You shouldn't take things for granted when it comes down to connecting a pseudo-alien peripheral to your Amiga... From what I read there you must've blown up the card because it uses 3.3V, and the amiga spurts out 5V I think...

What happens if you fuck up the Amiga with a PCMCIA card? be careful dude!

Echo · 27 August 2003, 14:09

Still on the lookout for a card. Stumbled across this handy reference site while trying to get model matches on Ebay:
http://www.g-mb.de/pcmcia_e.html

Not a bad list of cards that do/don't work with the Amiga.

No luck as yet, it's like trying to find a needle in a damn haystack.

Akira · 27 August 2003, 17:51

Nice list!!

Echo · 27 August 2003, 21:30

Hurrah, a mate has sorted me with an old card from his office!

It's a 3COM 3C589 which according to Toni Wilen on this thread, will work perfectly with 3c589.device

Should have it delivered within a week. Now I have to return the cardbus thing and attempt to get a refund in the state it's in

Akira · 27 August 2003, 22:50

Yup, that's a good one, found one used for 20 dollars, therefore i didnt get it :P

ant512 · 27 August 2003, 23:29

Now you'll just need to download a TCP stack, Samba, a network filesystem, web browsers, VNC clients... You'll also need to be handy with a text editor to modify all of the config files.

I confidently predict that you'll have a two-machine, multi-OS network running sometime before 2010.

Samba is probably the most difficult bit, assuming you don't go and install some fool TCP stack like AmiTCP, so you'll need this page:

http://www.amigasamba.org/

Note that the installation instructions on the net differ from those supplied in the Samba archive. Can't remember which one is correct, though. I think where one is wrong, the other is right.

Frootloop · 28 August 2003, 19:09

I found SMB-Connect, which uses the SMB-Handler device, to be very simple to setup and mount a Windows XP share. All you really have to do is edit the entry in the devs:mountlist file and providing you've entered the right IP addresses, user name and password, you should be up and running very quickly. (There's a GUI included but I prefer to use the command line) It works fine with Miami.

I also use FTPMount ("FTPMount.lha" v1.4 on Aminet) to mount my private FTP site as part of the filesystem.

All these methods should be simple to setup if you have a bit of experience with home networking/file sharing.

Akira · 28 August 2003, 19:18

Would a connection over SLIP work with SMBConnect? I want to connect the miggy to the PC through serial while I get myself a PCMCIA card.

Frootloop · 28 August 2003, 19:28

I'm not familiar with SLIP, but you simply supply an IP address to connect to on your PeeCee so it should work. I have my Amiga connected to the local network (my routers assigned IP address) so nobody has access from the outside.

Echo · 29 August 2003, 00:21

Quote:

Originally posted by ant512
...VNC clients...

There's an Amiga port of VNC? Oh boy, that will f'ing rock

I have a lot of software ready in preparation, will be using MiamiDX for the TCP/IP stack, and SMB-Connect as mentioned by Frootloop.

I'm fairly competent in mountlists having made one for my old zip & cd drive in the past - so that shouldn't be too bad.

I'll be chuffed just to see a card working, that's still the biggest hurdle

adolescent · 29 August 2003, 07:35

Quote:

Originally posted by Akira
Would a connection over SLIP work with SMBConnect? I want to connect the miggy to the PC through serial while I get myself a PCMCIA card.

Sould work but will be amazingly slow. But, how are you going to run a SLIP server on your Windows box?

ant512 · 29 August 2003, 09:49

Quote:

Originally posted by Echo
There's an Amiga port of VNC? Oh boy, that will f'ing rock

It only works PC-to-Amiga, so you can see your PC's screen on your Amiga monitor. If you want to work the other way, get Siamese. I think a version was released in a Devious Tools collection.

Quote:

I have a lot of software ready in preparation, will be using MiamiDX for the TCP/IP stack, and SMB-Connect as mentioned by Frootloop.

I tried SMB-Connect and, although it is easy to set up, it has major problems with large files and streaming. It tends to hang up. SMBFS is more stable. You'll only need Samba if you're trying to share your Amiga drives with your PC.

Echo · 29 August 2003, 10:41

Quote:

Originally posted by ant512
It only works PC-to-Amiga, so you can see your PC's screen on your Amiga monitor. If you want to work the other way, get Siamese. I think a version was released in a Devious Tools collection.

Hmm, that must be rather slow dithering a 24 bit desktop to 3 bit, lol. I would probably find the reverse more useful.

Quote:

I tried SMB-Connect and, although it is easy to set up, it has major problems with large files and streaming. It tends to hang up. SMBFS is more stable. You'll only need Samba if you're trying to share your Amiga drives with your PC.

Sorry, I actually meant SMBFS. The two names are rather similar. I think filesharing is probably the only useful function across this LAN. Surfing is going to be slow (display-wise) and will look horrible on a 3 bit screen.

Has anyone tried something like Doom over a networked PC and Amiga? Assuming current Amiga ports of Doom support netplay. That'd be pretty cool too

ant512 · 29 August 2003, 12:16

Quote:

Originally posted by Echo
Has anyone tried something like Doom over a networked PC and Amiga? Assuming current Amiga ports of Doom support netplay. That'd be pretty cool too

Most of the Doom ports don't connect to a PC. I've managed to get a two-Amiga (060) game running over Ethernet.

Akira · 29 August 2003, 16:35

I forgot all about Siamese... what a bloody good thing!
I think I got it somewhere, must get the ethernet card for trying it out!

adolescent · 30 August 2003, 00:15

Siamese is a nice setup. I've owned it for about 7-8 years now but have used the RTG only a handfull of times. The old video switcher was much more stable. There are also problems with Windows XP. For one, Sisys sometimes goes to 100% CPU if the Amiga side is disconnected. Second, long file names aren't accurately supported. But, for accessing the PC drives, it's a nice piece of software. I think Samba has caught up a bit but is harder to configure.

adolescent · 30 August 2003, 00:16

Quote:

Originally posted by Akira
I forgot all about Siamese... what a bloody good thing!
I think I got it somewhere, must get the ethernet card for trying it out!

BTW, Siamese supports serial via null modem also. It's going to be slow but it'll work for transfering smaller files just fine.

18 August 2003, 04:29	#1
Frootloop Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Canada, Eh Posts: 167	PCMCIA Ethernet I finally got my Kingston PCMCIA Ethernet card from the post office and set it up this afternoon. I had a bit of a problem getting MiamiInit to locate the DNS servers so I had to skip that part and enter the servers manually in Miami (entering the names manually in MiamiInit didn't work for some reason.) The card works great so far, I've only tested out AmFTP and AmIRC, but I'm eager to try and gets my disks over to CAPs. So, anyway, if you're looking for a card that works with your A1200, the Kingston model listed in the cnetdevice.lha (Aminet) compatability list works just fine. Oh yes, I did have to remove and re-insert the card when I first powered up the Amiga but that's not a big problem and there's a program on Aminet that will apparently fix that problem if you put it in your startup-sequence. (Sorry, don't have the name off hand.) The only thing I hate is the 1 hour Miami time-limit. Someone told me that it's no longer being sold but their web site is still running so I'm not sure...

18 August 2003, 12:55	#3
fiath Moderator Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: South East / UK Age: 35 Posts: 1,925	As long as it is NE2000 compliant, it should work fine. __________________ S.P.S. - The Software Preservation Society http://www.softpres.org

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18 August 2003, 13:13	#4
Echo Registered User Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: South-West Wales Posts: 382	I'll report back whether successful or not, because this is a nice cheap card (£13 inc VAT) if anyone else is looking to network their Amiga

18 August 2003, 14:36	#5
ant512 Registered User Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: England Posts: 925	If you're really stuck, you could always dig out the new 3Com PCMCIA driver from the Aminet and look at its compatibility list. The cards in there should be easier to get hold of. Incidentally, Kingston have stopped manufacturing network cards now, so they're difficult to get hold of.

18 August 2003, 19:07	#6
Echo Registered User Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: South-West Wales Posts: 382	Does Miami include something that can emulate "client for Microsoft networks" ? I'll be connecting the card to my router, which serves broadband Internet to all computers and also acts as a central location to enable file/print sharing. So it's actually more use to me having filesharing than pure web access on the Amiga.

19 August 2003, 09:41	#7
ant512 Registered User Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: England Posts: 925	You need SMBFS.lha from the Aminet. It mounts remote shared directories as volumes or devices, so you can access them as easily as you access RAM: or DF0:.

19 August 2003, 11:14	#8
Echo Registered User Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: South-West Wales Posts: 382	Thanks Ant, I'll get that and keep it in preparation for installation

22 August 2003, 21:04	#9
Echo Registered User Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: South-West Wales Posts: 382	Little joy with this card it seems I can eject/reinsert the card all I like, it doesn't want to be picked up. Doing this also causes the hd to 're-initialise', resulting in a lock next time I try to access it. cardpatch runs but doesn't help. cardreset fails unless I use the force switch, and then it doesn't help. The utility in the cnet.device package can't even find a card, I've put the cnet.device in devs anyway in case it might help. Stupid waste of money, Amigas were just not meant for networking.

23 August 2003, 15:23	#11
Echo Registered User Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: South-West Wales Posts: 382	It's very frustrating, because whenever a card crops up that is compatible, it's impossible to get hold of the identical model from a distributor. Kingston don't even make network cards anymore so I'm stumped on that brand too.

23 August 2003, 17:55	#12
Akira Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: # Posts: 12,584	Use ebay dude. I'm looking for used cars over there that are compatible and you can find plenty. Heck, if I found a couple of them locally, I bet overseas you are bound to find many more. oh lookie here: http://www.farallon.com/support/all/...001-10-19.html

23 August 2003, 20:50	#13
Echo Registered User Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: South-West Wales Posts: 382	Shite, wish I'd known that. I was fully aware the card was 32 bit but took for granted that A1200s could use them. Thanks for the link.

23 August 2003, 23:07	#14
Akira Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: # Posts: 12,584	You shouldn't take things for granted when it comes down to connecting a pseudo-alien peripheral to your Amiga... From what I read there you must've blown up the card because it uses 3.3V, and the amiga spurts out 5V I think... What happens if you fuck up the Amiga with a PCMCIA card? be careful dude!

27 August 2003, 14:09	#15
Echo Registered User Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: South-West Wales Posts: 382	Still on the lookout for a card. Stumbled across this handy reference site while trying to get model matches on Ebay: http://www.g-mb.de/pcmcia_e.html Not a bad list of cards that do/don't work with the Amiga. No luck as yet, it's like trying to find a needle in a damn haystack.

27 August 2003, 17:51	#16
Akira Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: # Posts: 12,584	Nice list!!

27 August 2003, 21:30	#17
Echo Registered User Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: South-West Wales Posts: 382	Hurrah, a mate has sorted me with an old card from his office! It's a 3COM 3C589 which according to Toni Wilen on this thread, will work perfectly with 3c589.device Should have it delivered within a week. Now I have to return the cardbus thing and attempt to get a refund in the state it's in

27 August 2003, 22:50	#18
Akira Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: # Posts: 12,584	Yup, that's a good one, found one used for 20 dollars, therefore i didnt get it :P

27 August 2003, 23:29	#19
ant512 Registered User Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: England Posts: 925	Now you'll just need to download a TCP stack, Samba, a network filesystem, web browsers, VNC clients... You'll also need to be handy with a text editor to modify all of the config files. I confidently predict that you'll have a two-machine, multi-OS network running sometime before 2010. Samba is probably the most difficult bit, assuming you don't go and install some fool TCP stack like AmiTCP, so you'll need this page: http://www.amigasamba.org/ Note that the installation instructions on the net differ from those supplied in the Samba archive. Can't remember which one is correct, though. I think where one is wrong, the other is right.

28 August 2003, 19:09	#20
Frootloop Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Canada, Eh Posts: 167	I found SMB-Connect, which uses the SMB-Handler device, to be very simple to setup and mount a Windows XP share. All you really have to do is edit the entry in the devs:mountlist file and providing you've entered the right IP addresses, user name and password, you should be up and running very quickly. (There's a GUI included but I prefer to use the command line) It works fine with Miami. I also use FTPMount ("FTPMount.lha" v1.4 on Aminet) to mount my private FTP site as part of the filesystem. All these methods should be simple to setup if you have a bit of experience with home networking/file sharing.

28 August 2003, 19:18	#21
Akira Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: # Posts: 12,584	Would a connection over SLIP work with SMBConnect? I want to connect the miggy to the PC through serial while I get myself a PCMCIA card.

28 August 2003, 19:28	#22
Frootloop Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Canada, Eh Posts: 167	I'm not familiar with SLIP, but you simply supply an IP address to connect to on your PeeCee so it should work. I have my Amiga connected to the local network (my routers assigned IP address) so nobody has access from the outside.

29 August 2003, 16:35	#28
Akira Registered User Join Date: May 2001 Location: # Posts: 12,584	I forgot all about Siamese... what a bloody good thing! I think I got it somewhere, must get the ethernet card for trying it out!

30 August 2003, 00:15	#29
adolescent Powered by Motorola Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Redondo Beach, CA Posts: 1,056	Siamese is a nice setup. I've owned it for about 7-8 years now but have used the RTG only a handfull of times. The old video switcher was much more stable. There are also problems with Windows XP. For one, Sisys sometimes goes to 100% CPU if the Amiga side is disconnected. Second, long file names aren't accurately supported. But, for accessing the PC drives, it's a nice piece of software. I think Samba has caught up a bit but is harder to configure.

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