OT: Realtek; Was Re: Windoze crash (was Re: Well, I was at

From: Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner <spc_at_conman.org>
Date: Tue Jul 8 18:24:01 2003

It was thus said that the Great Vintage Computer Festival once stated:
>
> On 8 Jul 2003, Frank McConnell wrote:
>
> > Mark Firestone <nedry_at_mail.bedlambells.com> wrote:
> > > Aww. They aren't the worst cheapo card I've been forced to buy in my
> > > career, as in they actually work, if slowly.
> > >
> > > What do you want for ?9
> >
> > I just get something of a chuckle out of people who figure all
> > Ethernet cards are alike. Perhaps they have forgotten the lessons of
> > the 3Com 3C50[01].
>
> What lesson was that? I thought they were fine. At least I never had
> problems with them.

  Reading the comments in the Linux 3c501 driver (drivers/net/3c501.c) is
amusing. Some of the good bits:

    Do not purchase this card, even as a joke. It's performance is horrible,
    and it breaks in many ways.

 * Some documentation is available from 3Com. Due to the boards age
 * standard responses when you ask for this will range from 'be serious'
 * to 'give it to a museum'. The documentation is incomplete and mostly
 * of historical interest anyway.

    The driver still allows only the default address for cards when loaded
    as a module, but that's really less braindead than anyone using a 3c501
    board. :)

  -spc (Doesn't seem to be very popular with the Linux crowd. But I've used
        other 3Com cards with no problem)
Received on Tue Jul 08 2003 - 18:24:01 BST