Re: tlug: Parallel Port Ethernet Adapter Source?

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

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tlug note from "Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>
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>>>>> "John" == John Little <gaijin@example.com> writes:

    >> Huh?  I thought avoiding that kinda dreck was what PCMCIA (and
    >> standards in general) were all about.  How "old" is this
    >> Dynabook?  Oh, I see, you DON'T have a PCMCIA slot, you have a
    >> JEIDA slot!

    John>   This is the first time I've even heard of "JEIDA" (weren't
    John> they the good guys in Star Wars??).

JEIDA is the Japan Electronic Industry Development Association.  They
came out with a "better" version of the PCMCIA standard before the
PCMCIA standard was finalized.  It's basically the same thing (upward
compatible with one of the drafts :-P) I think, but the differences
can bite you; many products specify that they are comply with both.

    John>   The Dynabook is an ancient 386, but the compatability list
    John> on the back of the PCMCIA card box did specifically mention
    John> "Dynabook", otherwise I wouldn't have bought it. Ever been

I suspect the problem is that Dynabooks aren't compatible with
Dynabooks.  None of the Japanese manufacturers seem to know the
difference between a "sample" implementation and a "reference"
implementation of a standard is.  They do regression testing on all
the peripherals they make (one would hope), but if it ain't their
product, it's the peripheral manufacturer's fault.

OF course, it could simply be an interaction with another peripheral.
Like maybe the damn ATOK ROMdisk, which screwed up the first
(pre-PCMCIA) Dynabook I bought and made it useless for most
everything.

    John> had, huh! Anyone need a TDK PCMCIA card? Linux compatible
    John> (according to the Linux PCMCIA notes).

Not any more; I now have a 33.6K modem/10BaseT PCMCIA card for my
(non-Linux) IBM Stinkpad (it will probably become Linux in the next
couple of weeks; maybe even tomorrow if somebody brings a 10BaseT hub ;-)
but I have to save some space for the wife's WinBiff and our
joint-custody Minesweeper).

I note that the Stinkpad's DOS PCMCIA drivers (1994 vintage) screw up
the new card (the card services manager doesn't seem to work right,
surprise, surprise = "nettowa-ku konpyu-chingu/ja-suto puraggu in!"
NOT.  Or maybe that was make-ga-kachi ;-).

-- 
                            Stephen J. Turnbull
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences                    Yaseppochi-Gumi
University of Tsukuba                      http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp/
Tel: +81 (298) 53-5091;  Fax: 55-3849              turnbull@example.com
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