On Tue, 11 Dec 2012, Jay Jaeger wrote:
As an FYI, I recently purchased an Ethernet card, 3Com
Assembly number
2012-01 (I believe this is a 3c505). It works perfectly.
I am now in the process of attempting to read in as many of the (over 100,
maybe 50 or so without duplicates) tape cartridges as I can, and will forward
them off to Al Kossow that CHM when I get them read (presumably on a DVD).
You can find these Ethernet cards on:
EBay right now has two of them:
^^^^^^^^ If this is the guy I think it is, at one he was notorious for
making one-sided trades with other people within the classic computing
community. You can certainly see what he has since done with his spoils.
One or two sales a month is all it takes for him to stick around and
continue to take advantage of people who are desperate for a certain part
for an older computer.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/3Com-2012-16-Bit-ISA-Ethernet-Coax-Network-Card-/19…
And also at Pinnacle Micro / EZ-Systems may also still have some. Part
number ASSY-2012-01 "ASSY-2012-01 3Com
Refurbished Assembly 201201 ETHERLINK 16 BIT 30 Day Warranty"
They are $28.75 from Pinnacle, but the minimum with shipping is $50, so you
end up paying $50. Suggest adding a comment that you do indeed want the
"LONG version of the card" (they called me to confirm that). I got mine
there because they offer a 30 day warranty (at least on the one I bought),
which is what motivated me to drag out my DN3000 and try and read some tapes
and FTP the files and test them with the DN3xxx emulator inside of the "mess"
simulator. Even one of the bad SR10.2 boot tapes I could at least boot from
after the transfer, and enough of the tape was there that some of the
programs would run (e.g., calendar, invol, config all ran).
I saw at least one card somewhere else on the net for a reasonable price, but
I forget where.
Do any other network cards work? I might still have some 3c505 boards in
my stash but I have literally 100s of other 3Com, Western Digital/SMC,
Intel, etc cards of the same vintage.
If someone has a genuine need for a /specific/ card, ping me and let me
know what you are looking for because I'll usually let it go for cheap or
trade for other boards. (Anyone /need/ one of those awful, slow, buggy
3c501 boards for anything?) I stockpiled tons of this stuff for my own use
back when these sort of boards were available by the pound, and with many
boards I'll probably never use them all (the only exception being certain
EISA boards, which I'm probably not going to part with any time soon).