NE1000
The Novell Eagle NE1000 network card is an 8-bit Ethernet adapter marketed from 1985 . The NE1000 was an open 8-bit ISA bus design for Ethernet cards. NE2000 was the 16-bit ISA counterpart, the design of both cards is almost identical and, like the WD80x3 , SMC-Ultra , 3c503 and NE2000 cards, is based on the National Semiconductor DP8390 chip. Novellmade both designs openly available with the intention of getting as many manufacturers as possible to build such cards. Right from the design stage, attention was paid to low manufacturing costs, and separate processors and additional memory (RAM) were specifically avoided. This enabled the entry prices for the NE1000 to be reduced, in particular to open up further markets for Novell Netware -based networks. NE1000 Ethernet cards ultimately dominated the 8-bit ISA market, despite the design inadequacies.
history
The success of the NE1000 cards was less than that of its sister card NE2000, but it was big enough to take away significant market shares from the arch-rival 3Com with its 3C501, but also from other competitors. The significantly lower success compared to the NE2000 was mainly due to the relatively late appearance of these 8-bit cards. The NE1000 was offered in 1987 at a price of just under US $ 500. In 1984 IBM released the 16-bit successor to the IBM PC XT , the IBM PC AT based on the 80286 . Like almost all of the PCs that followed in the next few years, these systems had a 16-bit ISA bus as standard. Since Novell could not foresee the rapid spread of 16-bit computers and still wanted to offer a card for the abundant 8-bit IBM PC XT PCs and their clones, it was decided to use both an 8-bit and one 16-bit card.
Asian card manufacturers, who only started producing NE2000-compatible cards in the 1990s, dispensed with the 8-bit version. Some clone manufacturers went special ways here, they developed 16-bit NE2000 cards that could be configured as 8-bit NE1000 cards via jumpers and operated on the 8-bit ISA bus.
Almost all NE1000 cards and their clones are classic ISA cards and therefore have jumpers. The assignments of the jumpers are often printed on the card. This is a great advantage compared to the frequent jumperless (non plug and play ) NE2000 clones, because there is no need to search for the configuration program and the suitable boot floppy disk for the clone . There are also practically no plug and play versions; at the time of this innovation, 8-bit network cards such as the NE1000 had largely disappeared from the market.
Individual evidence
- ^ Novell to Add Features To Advanced Netware . In: Network World . February 23, 1987. Retrieved January 15, 2012. "The company announced an Ethernet adapter card priced lower than competitive products, many of which Novell distributes. The E-Net adapter, which uses an 8-bit bus and can be used with Either thin or thick Ethernet cabling, is priced at $ 495. The product will most likely replace 3Com's $ 595 Etherlink card in Novell's line. "