Looking for 3COM 3C905-TX Drivers

[Jerome H. Fine]

 >Robert Jarratt wrote:

>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck
>>Guzis
>>Sent: 27 December 2015 20:34
>>To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
>><cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>>Subject: Re: Looking for 3COM 3C905-TX Drivers
>>
>>On 12/27/2015 01:57 AM, Robert Jarratt wrote:
>>
>>>Thanks Marc. The drivers from the HP Enterprise site worked, although
>>>for Windows 95 I have been unable to get TCP/IP working. DHCP is not
>>>working and ping moans about a wrong protocol. It looks like I am
>>>missing VUDP.386 and I could not find it on the Windows 95 CD. I am
>>>pretty sure I have another CD with OSR2 somewhere, but I can't find it
>>>at the moment. Will have another look at some point, but I think the
>>>driver itself is just fine now.
>>>      
>>>
>>For what it's worth, I use Win98SE as the minimum Win9x version on my
>>systems.  Many fewer bugs than 95 and the minidriver platform has a degree
>>of compatibility with NT/2K/XP.  I run a Linksys WMP-54GS wireless PCI LAN
>>adapter on 98SE, for example with no issues.
>>
>I should probably also set up 98. I chose 95 because it was quite an
>important version of Windows, and it is just nice to see how it used to be. 
>  
>
>>And I have a similar 98SE/XP/Debian K6 box using the 3C905-TX with no
>>problems whatsoever.
>>
I am also running Win98SE on a 750 MHz Pentium III with 768 MB of memory
and 160 GB ATA 100 hard drives.  Unfortunately, the BIOS supports hard
drives only up to 131 GB, but since the original hard drives were more 
expensive
and were only 40 GB, I was really very pleased.  It also has both 3.5" 
and 5 1/4"
floppy drivers, an Adaptec AHA2940AU host adapter and several DVD and CD
drives.

One of the really KEY aspects of the hardware is a video card which supports
FULL  SCREEN mode at 80 columns and 132 columns at many different
lines including BOTH 24 lines and 50 lines for 80 columns PLUS 24 lines
and 44 lines for 132 columns.  The primary program which uses this hardware
is the PDP-11 emulator, Ersatz-11, which is probably used 90% of the time
and I run normal Netscape 7.2 for e-mail the other 10% of the time.

This system is more than 12 years old.  All of the original 40 GB hard 
drivers
have been replaced along with the power supply.  Indeed, even the 
replacement
power supply is inadequate and I have managed to continue by using a 
separate
power supply just for the hard disk drives which I presume sufficiently 
reduces
the load for the power supply for the motherboard and floppies.

Since I am a real Windows dummy, I hesitate to upgrade to a current I7 CPU
with SATA hard drives.  Is there any reasonable possibility of using an 
I7 CPU
with Win98SE?  Are there still I7 motherboards which support at least 
one floppy
at a time - either 3.5" or 5 1/4" floppies?  Are there any Video cards 
available
which still support FULL  SCREEN mode at 132 columns?  Mainly, I would
stay with the 12 year old system for another 25 years if I had reliable 
spare
parts and Netscape 7.2 would still continue to support e-mail with 
newsgroups
that are still a small but vital link to other activity that I find 
interesting.  Are
there used hardware parts still available for a Pentium III system?  I 
realize
that there are no guarantees, but where would I find sources for such
hardware?

Note that if I stopped running Ersatz-11 in FULL  SCREEN mode, then I
could easily switch to a different system.  In that respect, I probably have
accumulated over 100,000 e-mails and posts from newsgroups (mostly
the latter, of course).  Is is possible to transfer the e-mails and posts to
Microsoft junk or is there a better e-mail application like Thunderbird?

Jerome Fine