Path: rcfnews.cs.umass.edu!barrett From: mooncrow@aloha.com (Robert A. Green) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: CEI A4066 Ethernet Plus network board Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.networking Date: 20 Jul 1995 18:21:52 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 171 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <3um6s0$h2n@kernighan.cs.umass.edu> Reply-To: mooncrow@aloha.com (Robert A. Green) NNTP-Posting-Host: astro.cs.umass.edu Keywords: hardware, networking, ethernet, Zorro, commercial Originator: barrett@astro.cs.umass.edu PRODUCT NAME CEI A4066 Ethernet Plus network board BRIEF DESCRIPTION A Zorro II/III Ethernet card supporting 10BaseT, AUI and ThinNet connections. Includes a SANA II compliant device driver. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Creative Equipment International Address: 5555 W. Flagler St. Miami, FL 33134 USA Telephone: (305) 266-2800 LIST PRICE I believe the suggested retail is $300 (US). At any rate, that seems to be what it is going for in the mail order ads. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE A Zorro II/III slot SOFTWARE Some type of networking software (after all, why install the card otherwise?). COPY PROTECTION None. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 3000T with 25MHz 68040 CPU 2MB Chip, 8 MB Fast RAM Kickstart 37.175 (2.04) Workbench 38.36 (2.1) AmiTCP 4.0 (demo) INSTALLATION The card comes defaulted for use with ThinNet cabling which is what my LAN uses, so it was simply a matter of opening the computer and installing the card in a free Zorro slot. GENERAL COMMENTS The A4066 is a pretty straightforward product in the whole scheme of things. Let it suffice to say that out of this whole project, the Ethernet card was the easiest thing to deal with. Basically, I put the card in the machine, powered up, installed the driver, and was done with it. AmiTCP worked flawlessly with the card as soon as it was started. My Amiga is on a TCP/IP network with an 2 MS-DOS machines, 2 Linux machines and one box that is booting as either MS DOS or Linux depending on what it is being used for. The Amiga has never batted an eyelash about contacting any of these machines. [MODERATOR'S NOTE: For non-English speakers, "never batted an eyelash" means "never had a problem." - Dan] APPLICATIONS So far I have used the A4066 for only telnet and ftp, but judging by the fact that everything so far works fine, I would estimate that this card will work with any software that supports a SANA II network device. For reference, my machine is also running Parnet at the same time, and the two get along just dandy. Please feel free to drop in and "check" the card operation for yourself, as it is also supplying telnet connections for Internet access to my BBS: telnet bbs.mxi.com. DOCUMENTATION Documentation for the card is pretty sparse, consisting of a 5 page booklet. Frankly, it doesn't need much. Getting a network card installed is pretty straightforward. Getting the software that will use the network card set up is a whole different story, but that's for other reviews. LIKES Well, what's not to like about Ethernet? It's fast (10MB/sec data transfers) and doesn't seem to have any effect on the machine's speed. Wish I could say the same about AmiTCP . DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS About the only thing I didn't like about the A4066 was the price, but since it is priced about the same as the other Zorro Ethernet cards I checked on (Hydra, Ariadne) I guess that is just the state of the market. Sure makes me wince when I think back to the $30 I paid for essentially the same thing for a Bmer though. Such is the price we pay to use the Amiga I guess. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS I haven't used any other Amiga Ethernet cards, but based on what I have read, there isn't much difference between this card and the Ariadne and Hydra cards. Here's the differences that I was able to gather though: A4066 has a 64K buffer, Ariadne has 32K, Hydra has ??. A4066 comes with only the device drivers, while the Ariadne also comes with Envoy (an Amiga-Amiga networking package). For my purposes, Envoy was of no use, since I am linking my A3000T to non-Amiga machines. BUGS No bugs noted. VENDOR SUPPORT N/A WARRANTY 1 year repair/replacement warranty against design, material or workmanship defects to the "buyer". CONCLUSIONS This is a solid product that delivers exactly what is promised. I give it a hearty recommendation to anyone needing to connect an Amiga to an Ethernet LAN. COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1995 Robert A. Green (mooncrow@aloha.com). May be freely reproduced and distributed in whole or in part so long as no text is modified and this copyright notice is included. No fee may be charged for the reproduction/distribution of this document, nor may it be included in any document/publication for which a fee is charged without the prior written consent of the author. /\ /\ /\ /\ |/\ /\ |/\ /\ | | Robert A. Green | \/ | | || || || | | | | | mooncrow@aloha.com | | \/ \/ | | \/ | \/ \/\/ BBS:808-456-8541 8-n-1 28.8K Web Surfing Address - http://asylum.aloha.com/~mooncrow --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews