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Seeking Drivers for Unknown Apple Ethernet Card?
rbanffy asks: "Does anybody know what this card is? I am resurrecting an old Macintosh LC II and would like to attach it to a network. The card was inside it, but the hard disk had no drivers. It is an LC-PDS Ethernet card with RJ-45 and BNC connectors. The important parts seem to be a SMC 91c92 chip and an EPROM (haven't seen one in years) labeled 'LC ROM 44F0'. Could one of you can identify this critter and point me to the correct drivers?"
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You should check out the Mac Driver Museum. If they don't have the right one on their site already there is the MacDrivers Yahoo Group where you can ask.
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Given that this would seem to be exactly what the concept of "Ask Slashdot" was invented for, I would hazard a reply of "Yes. Duh?"
Unless you're proposing that questions posed to the teeming masses of Slashdotia should be put where nobody will see them...
Use the FCC ID, on the conveniently not pictured side of the card and look it up on net. The FCC keeps a handy lookup database online, just for you.
I found this on mirror.apple.com.
The readme file for this driver is here.
To quote:
"Apple Ethernet LC driver file version 1.0.1 This driver file contains drivers for all Apple LC PDS ethernet cards and is installed in the extensions folder."
That was, like, two minutes work on Google. What gives?
"Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"
The SMC91C92 controller chip is fairly common, and googling for it found several references to cards based on it. Does "Focus EtherLAN II" mean anything to you? Take a look at this post from 1996 as a starting point.
:)
The datasheet for the SMC91cXXX family is here in case that helps at all.
P.S. I've never opened up a Mac.
P.P.S. Unless gravitationally-induced acceleration counts.
I had a Mac LC II not long ago, same card, with drivers on the hard disk. However, I threw that Mac LC II away. As you should also do with yours.
I know, it's fun, but there's also a lot of fun to be had in subjects that may actually be useful in the future. Why waste the time learning the equivalent of making flint arrowheads? When you're looking for a job, do you think anyone will be impressed that you know how to use base-level consumer computing hardware from two decades ago? Maybe five years ago, you might have run into an LC II running somewhere, maybe as an application keyserver. But not anymore.
...
I just got a job where have to create an application to allow users to interact with a database. Can anyone tell me how this is done, preferably with working sample code? The target platform is...
The driver of this mac is pretty old
short answer
longer answer
get the fcc id , it's probably on the other side of the card
enter "fcc" and the id in google.
now you know who made the card, and maybe what it's called.
go back to google and enter the name of the card , and something like "driver"
I'll guess it's a Focus Etherlan II, and that there are drivers for it here
Now I'll go back to solving my own problems
I think that is an important part of the piece you have left out. I've found a TON of links for BSD and Linux drivers on Mac for the thing but if you want original Mac drivers you are probably better off asking on Usenet, a Mac forum, or IRC and see what you can find out. CliffH
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Well, I've got whole boxes of old cards that need to be identified. Maybe we should set up a photo gallery to identify all of them. But I didn't post pictures of any of mine here, so oh well. I guess.
The way I usually figure out what cards are and/or what settings they have is to boot a Slackware boot/root diskette set on the machine and read the kernel messages from the bootup. That's how I figured out the IRQ/IO addressing on the NE2000 card in the machine I run Minix on. Can't do that on a Mac, but you CAN boot up NetBSD, which is just as good.
A Good Intro to NetBS
If I can remember correctly if the card is manufactured by Apple you'll only need the Ethernet drivers that come with the MacOS install.
If the submitter is unable to find part numbers, software procedures should have been tried. I'm not sure (never owned an LC-era machine) but if I wanted to know what a strange PCI card was, I'd pop it in my x86 Linux box and check /proc/pci for any information. There's probably some kind of equivalent for the LC.
No, it's a PDS card. PDS stands for Processor Direct Slot. Never seen one of them in an x86 box!
I bought one of these same cards for my LC III back in the day, but that was a few machines ago. I don't tend to throw things away, but finding an old driver might be pushing it...
It appears to be an old ethernet card from a Macintosh LC II.
nfm
hi,
;)
i know one of the german SMC office's CEOs -- i mailed him the pic and asked him to refer to one of his techs if (s)he knows more. if i get an answer -- you will get mine
greetz,
[//eclipser]
I used to have a card that looked exactly like that, in an LC II I got from my high school. I have no idea what brand or model it is.
It worked perfectly with a default System 7.5 install (using the network access disk to boot (Iomega driver bunged in), and then a SCSI Zip drive to install 7.5.3 and the 7.5.5 update), so I assume the drivers are bundled with the System 7.5 software.
Oh, and it's really, really slow.
Hope this helps.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
This stuff is gold, where do I subscribe??? While we are this hardware identification quest, maybe someone can help me with this. I don't know who made my monitor so finding a driver is proving kinda difficult. I can't post a pic for fear of being /.'ed but I can describe it.
Kind of an off white colored plasticy frame with a lcd panel in it. About 15" corner to corner. It's got 4 buttons on the front for changing the brightness etc. It says' "Fujitsu Siemens computer" on the front. Not sure what that means, some kind of Japanese.
You know the one I mean? you know where I can get a driver for it?
And I got this mouse - blue top, silver bottom - 2 buttons and a wheel. You know who makes it?
Hope you can help.
If you're using MacOS the default Ethernet drivers that comes with it will work fine. If you're planning on using another OS, well, I'm pretty sure *BSD will handle that card. Don't know about Linux.
- Apple Computer......proudly going out of business for over twenty years.
A RTL813X based chip 10/100 PCI eithernet card will run with ease in a LCII, and the drivers for it are readily available online.
http://www.driverguide.com will have the driver archived for the mac, particulary the OS 7.X version.
I do believe that realtek.com will have the reference drivers for the mac as well..
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
Oops, I'm fresh out of irony. Going to flame mode.
Everyone who uses Slashdot is into online discussion. And why not? You learn stuff, you meet people, you exercise the brain cells defending your point of view. So resources that facilitate online discussion -- web communities like Slashdot, Wikis, mailing lists -- are really valuable to us. But the usefullness of these resources can degrade really quickly, if you don't watch out. What do you need to watch out for? Irrelevent Crap.
Where does IC come from? There's spam, of course, but most online resources have gotten pretty good at filtering that out. Nowadays, most IC has one source: Assholes.
Note that simple stupidity is not Assholedom. We all do stupid stuff: post poorly thought-out opinions, get sloppy about keeping a conversation on topic, yada yada. What separates this from true Assholedom is ego. An Asshole never admits mistakes, never admits to being misinformed, never lets anybody else have the last word. Assholedom is stupidity that demands to be heard and bullies its way to maximum exposure.
In extreme cases, Assholedom degenerates into simple, mindless trolling. But it's more common for Assholes to maintain the illusion that they're actually contributing to the conversation. The standard excuse for such mid-level assholes is "if you don't want to read it, don't read it." I have no patience for that cop-out.
That card is for the "CS" (Communications Slot) on older macs. The LC & Quadra (pizza box) could use em. I have one of those nics now, I have found that all the MacOS System 7.x boot CDs could detect em.
As a side note: You could run NetBSD on those old 68K macs... sweet. I think running MacOS would be slow, and un-rewarding. At least it was on my Quadra.
Enjoy.
The LC II only has one expansion slot, it's called the LC PDS (processor direct slot). Newertech (RIP) released some tools long ago that I still use occasionally to check out the manufacturer info on cards like these. It's called "Slot Info" and although I couldn't actually find a link that worked, at least here's a page listing it: http://www.tucows.com/mac/diagtoolmac.html If you need more in-depth 68k Mac info I would recommend the mailing-lists on www.lowendmac.com. There are several people on those lists that know more about old macs than is healthy. Ignore the complainers.
Wanted to moderate, had to participate.
/. question, it does show just how far the good Dot has come. The shift in attitude may only be as a result of OS X, but that's alright. However, rbanffy, you should really post this on something like the XLR8YourMac.com forums or such.. you'll get the same answer, faster.
Any EPROM card will work without special drivers, as long as you have an appropriate system installed. 6.0.8 and up, I believe.
Your LC II can only run from System 7.0.1 to 7.5.5, and those have been made available for free download on Apple's site, at their Older Software Downloads page. Heh, there's even Windows software there! Most EPROM-labeled stuff carries somewhat of a rule of thumb with it.. either it works with the default OS install or it's dead. They were all built to Apple's specs.
..and although I too don't see this as much of a
Seeking Drivers for Unknown Apple Ethernet Card
I've sent a similar request to various automotive forums. Has anyone ever driven a Ford Lately?
Do a google search, they know it all!
That looks like a third-party clone of the Asante PDS slot ethernet card. I think there were Apple drivers for it. We had a card that looked just like that, and it worked great once the drivers were installed.
Oh, and about the FCC ID: I have _never_ found any information about a piece of hardware using the FCC ID. Honest.
You should use AdiumX on your Mac.