Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Acill on March 21, 2004, 01:51:14 PM
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I just got an X-surf II for free out of a trashed A2000 I found at a yard sale here. It works and thats a great deal for me. The thing that pissed me off though is what the X-surf II card IS. This thing is nothing more then a $5 Realtek based 8029 chip ISA card stuck on a custom ZII adapter board. I looked and see these sell for $120 at most places. Thats a damn shame. I see no reason they should be any more then $50-75 MAX. This s yet another hardware company taking a cheap card and adapting to use on an Amiga then marking it up for max profits. This is going to kill the Amiga all over if new stuff comes out and they mark it up just because it works on Amiga.
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The problem is the demand; for all the work put into designing the ISA bridge and making it cost-effective to produce, how many of these do you think have sold, versus the original silicon that could 1. integrate the bus logic and 2. ship in quantities great enough that I own more generic Realtek cards than computers?
(In other words, the expense isn't the ethernet controller; if it were just an ISA bridge, a-la GoldenGate, it would still be just as expensive and do less.)
I do think it's a shame that a couple bucks couldn't have been knocked off the original 5? years ago; lack of connectivity has literally kept the Amiga isolated. (Nobody had 'obvious' Plug-'n'-PPP solutions then, and the slightly larger crowd of holdouts left weren't ready to tether their machines to PCs.)
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Well it's what I said before. Too many Amiga users take their hardware to emotional levels. Some people have near to utter wedding vows to their machines. Companies know this, and will play anything on the emotions of the Amiga users. Even if it means using sub-par hardware on items they sell to the users.
Hell, the x86 market might be cut throat, and cheap, cheap, cheap, but I tend to find more honest people in it then the Amiga market. It's just as bad as a certain Macintosh video card company insisting on charging money for drivers for cards over 12 years old.
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Normally what happens in commercial enterprise is this:
Company release hardware for the highest price they think they can get away with.
Competitor release a cheaper version.
Company lose sales due to compitor, so reduce prices.
...and so on.
The problem here is that the Amiga market has very little competition. People will pay inordinate sums of money for hardware because they have to - there is no cheaper alternative.
Unless of course you try to beat competition by releasing huge quantities of FUD and disinformation against your competitors...
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The other problem is that Amiga hackers (of all colors) approach business like 1985's Amiga Corp. with the Joyboards and Atari games -- "Let's do this so we can fund something better." The shortsightedness of the commodity market is sometimes a virtue; companies get into 'doing one thing' (think Linksys or Realtek with networking), and don't get tricked into thinking "Oh, if we mark this up by 10, 15, 1500 cents, that much more to invest in what we really want to do."
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hi acill,
yes i agree, it is a little bit overpriced but take in mind that it is the only nic, that has an its own PPPoE driver for Genesis, 2 IDE buses (1 2.5"and 1 3.5") and a clock port as well.
It is very useful for ADSL and an ADSL eth. modem with Genesis.
Ciao
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Unless of course you try to beat competition by releasing huge quantities of FUD and disinformation against your competitors...
Was it really necessary to include this?
This kind of statement really does not help anybody and certainly does not assist an already troubled community
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Hell, the x86 market might be cut throat, and cheap, cheap, cheap, but I tend to find more honest people in it then the Amiga market.
There are swings and roundabouts here. The PC hardware market suffers *badly* from cheapo, crap, not-well-QA'd hardware. It also makes it extremely difficult for new companies to get in on a market where a product (say a graphics card) has had a good few billion dollars poured into R&D then sold for less than $100.
Now if someone could design a card that cost $5 to make (all costs included), they'd have to be extremely stupid to try and sell it for $150 when it's a much easier sell at say $50. Anyone in business knows that it is far better to have 20 customers paying you $5 for a product than 5 customers each paying you $20. Word of mouth sales. Greater confidence in the market because more people have seen the product work.
The Amiga has a technical problem though (business/community/history issues aside). A big range of stock computers that haven't varied much over time. There isn't much incentive for someone with an expanded A2000 to start all over again with an A4000. So (for example) a network card can't be sold that will fit in all Amigas, so the size of the potential number of sales drops sharply.
I bet the price of that network card is justified. Justified in that it can't be mass-produced due to lack of funds, nor is there a reasonable-sized market to sell it to, or there might be an issue where not enough funding has gone into it to ensure it can be mass-produced cheaply.
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IonDeluxe wrote:
Unless of course you try to beat competition by releasing huge quantities of FUD and disinformation against your competitors...
Was it really necessary to include this?
This kind of statement really does not help anybody and certainly does not assist an already troubled community
I'm not sure KennyR can help it.
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@Acill
When it is all so damm easy and cheap to do, why don't you
just start to do it yourself ?
You know, designing the bridge, writing the drivers, production
distribution .....
Cards like the Ariadne were even more expensive, same goes
for Multi-serial-boards and such like. They all have one
thing in common. One took a standard chip (or card the differene
is minimal) from the PC-world, added a Zorro-interface and
a driver ....
Thats how it works in a market were you can only sell less
than 1000 pieces of one product.
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mikeymike wrote:
IonDeluxe wrote:
Unless of course you try to beat competition by releasing huge quantities of FUD and disinformation against your competitors...
Was it really necessary to include this?
This kind of statement really does not help anybody and certainly does not assist an already troubled community
I'm not sure KennyR can help it.
LOL
Maybe you're right :)
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Well, it's true enough, isn't it? Whenever you get two products that do the same job in the Amiga market, the FUD starts flying. GREX and Mediator is another example.
Limited resources always makes for lots of infighting. It's human nature. And in this community, resources couldn't be much more limited.
But anyway, it's not even limited to small markets. The internet is full of GUI vs. Shell wars, BSD vs. Linux, Windows vs. Linux, Radeon vs. nVidia, etc etc etc. Human beings are intolerant tribal things who cripple their choice with their own prejudices.
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It may be true, but that doesn't draw away from the fact that you like to draw attention to it more often than not :-)
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There is always a high "premium" in this market, think of it as "Amiga TAX".
Eyetech are masters of the above (especially with misleading adverts of products which are not even available.)
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You may not realize how much it costs to produce that custom zorro adaptor in the quantities the Amiga market has demand for... He's not manufacturing these in bulk remember. Or the fact that he'd like compensation for supporting his products, and some amount of profit from the thing so he can pay rent and buy food. Or are you one of those "I don't care if Amiga developers have bills to pay" folks? Considering the size of his available market, I don't think it much of a ripoff myself. If you don't like it, get a Zorro3 machine if you don't already have one and a PCI bus adaptor. That way you only buy the adaptor once and then can have your $5 network card, $40 sound card, etc...
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You make it sound like this is the persons only form of income, which would just be plain stupid if it was. Charging so much for an adapter isn't justified, no matter how much you try and make it sound like they have to pay for everything.
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Charging so much for an adapter isn't justified,
Sounds like a good opportunity for an enteprising person such as yourself.
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It would be if I was better at electronics, wasn't at full time univerisity and didn't have to work in my spare time.
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It would be if I was better at electronics, wasn't at full time univerisity and didn't have to work in my spare time.
So in short, you would do this if you had any idea how to do it?
Perhaps the 'get rich quick' spams might yield the opportunities you need to set up such a venture?
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So in short, you would do this if you had any idea how to do it?
That isn't even remotely like anything I said.
Perhaps the 'get rich quick' spams might yield the opportunities you need to set up such a venture?
What does this have to do with anything?
Now who are the ones trolling?
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@NightShade737
Q>Charging so much for an adapter isn't justified
OK! can YOU do better for less money with the same level of customer care and product quality?
Yes? Well DO IT! I would be happy to buy some tens of it :-)
BTW, what do you think of Elbox charging $$$ for a cheap PC pci USB 2.0 board after changing the board name? no R&D, no adaptator here.
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@ NightShade737
Your argument does not make any sense. First you admit to a lack of electronics knowledge, you don't put up any logic to back up your argument, imply a lack of business experience, then you fall back on a lame excuse that is supposed to 'finish off your argument nicely'.
All electronic products are really expensive when they first come on the market. The cost is driven down mainly due to the amount of units sold, and partially down to product delivery efficiency. Amiga hardware does not have a large amount of customers, nor does it have funding to drive the cost of production down. So it stays at the price that it came on the market at.
Mobile phones would be really expensive still if there hadn't been a phenomenal amount of sales done. Mobile phone companies took chances (but based on a real potential to sell in large amounts, unlike the Amiga hardware market), and they paid off.
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Right, so your arguments basically say that, if you cant do it yourself cheaper, then you can't argue. Well thats a great idea. Maybe I should pay £7000 for a graphics card, because "I can't make one the same for cheaper", sorry, but that argument is utter bollocks. Just because you can't make one cheaper yourself doesn't mean that you can't complain about high pricing. The same argument was bought up against software "Oh, if you can't make a better one then stop moaning/critisizing it" that statement is plain stupid and is basically a developer/creator argument to try and stop people complaining about problems.
The expensiveness caused by small sales, and rip off pricing are two completely different things that you dont seem to want to differentiate between. Yes, the Surf would be quite expensive, but current pricing for lots of things is way above the "small amount" barrier.
I don't see any logic to back up your argument either other than the same "It's expensive because not many are made" statement which is moot for the reason I have just stated.
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You guys make it sound like the XSurf2 is nothing but a cheap PC card and a custom adapter to make it fit in a zorro bus. That is not the case as it has 1x3,5" IDE and 1x2,5" IDE connector, 2 clockports and one 26pin Individual Computer port.
Then you compare it to the PC market. The PC market sells more cards in a day than the Amiga market sells in a year, most likely. How can you even begin to compare prices then?
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I think the biggest problem is that the card isn't exactly accurately represented. Very rarely, if ever, will you find it publicized that it's a two piece card. People might be more accepting of the fact, if they knew it up front. I know I was kinda ticked when I first found it out when opening the box of one brand new I had bought mail-order....
Of course, also, it would have helped if the X-Surf wasn't such a shoddy card. (This is from my personal experience with the X-Surf 1 -- I haven't bought an X-Surf 2 -- wonder why?) First off, is the ambush of a 2 piece card. Next, comes the surprise when it's dimensions are about 5mm off, so it doesn't fit properly into a stock case. Then, when examining the card, you realize just how many poor solder joints are on this card... Then, you finally modify your stock case (which already has three normal sized cards in it that fit perfectly) and try to run the software. Then you realize the card is slower than any other Zorro ethernet solution for Amiga, including cards made over 10 years earlier. Then, of course, the card arcs at one of the bad solder joints and fries itself, and hopefully not your computer with it. This is the story I lived.
I will say that Jens did stand by the card, and offered to take a look at it, if I wanted to pack it up, and pay postage both ways to Germany. After my last experience with shipping items to Germany (Phase5), I chose not to take him up on that offer, though.
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Feel free to design your own and bring it to market.....
Steve
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@Ilwrath
Uh?? :-o I bought four of these cards since it appeared on the Amiga market.
Three was XSurf I and the last XSurf II, the first one in 1999 and the last in 2003.
It all fit perfectly in my Amigas (A4000 Desktop, A3000 Desktop, A3000 Tower, A4000 Tower) all in their original cases and without ANY modifications to it.
I've never have ANY problems with that four cards since and it are working nearly 24/7 here.
I will try it in some A2000s I have to see how it works.
As for the "slow speed" of it, it is known that the Sana II drivers are slower than their NMI counterpart, if you use Miami it's explained in it's docs ;-) speed is a question of cables quality and lenght too :-)
As for the "advertising", having a look at Jens' web site will show you it in all it's glory here : http://www.jschoenfeld.de/products/xsurf_e.htm (xsurf I with photo and long description and here : http://www.jschoenfeld.de/products/xsurf2_e.htm (for xsurf II description).
If you want bigger photos you can go to http://www.amiga-hardware.com/xsurf.html.
I don't know how you do when you want to buy something for my Amigas, but for myself I always go to the manufacturer site to have the more infos I can on that product before buying it.
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That is not the case as it has 1x3,5" IDE and 1x2,5" IDE connector, 2 clockports and one 26pin Individual Computer port.
It's not quite that simple...
The two IDE-ports should be considered as a free add-on. The necessary drivers are not included, because we don't want you to pay for an IDE controller if you only intend to get an Ethernet card. If you want to use IDE devices, you'll have to buy the IDE-fix software package. Anyway, the ports should not be considered as full IDE ports, because you can't boot from them, and the timing is not configurable. If you want these functions, we recommend a Buddha Flash controller.
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@voxel-
Ah yes.... But where does it actually say it's a standard ISA card grafted onto a Zorro interface? (Hint: It doesn't) Also, the small picture on Jens site isn't enough to really realize exactly what is going on, if you haven't seen the actual card, or a larger picture before. It just looks like an odd-shaped card.
Amiga-hardware.com is an excellent resource. Unfortunatly, I didn't know about it 3 years ago when I bought the X-Surf.
It all fit perfectly in my Amigas (A4000 Desktop, A3000 Desktop, A3000 Tower, A4000 Tower) all in their original cases and without ANY modifications to it.
This was in an A4000 desktop. The card was approx 5mm too long. This was partially due to a very thick metal used on the backplane of the card, and not bent properly to fit. Though the backplane was rivitted on, so I couldn't remove it, and had to clip a small bit of the comparatively thin metal on the back of my case.
As for the "slow speed" of it, it is known that the Sana II drivers are slower than their NMI counterpart, if you use Miami it's explained in it's docs speed is a question of cables quality and lenght too
This was using MNI! The card is dog slow in any mode. Compare it with any drivers/stack you like to any other Zorro-based card, and post numbers. It's about half the speed of the next slowest that I've seen. And a cable length of 10ft to a dedicated 10/100 switch shouldn't be a problem. It sure isn't for any other system I have.... (Including my 4000D with a different card.)
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Well, there is the point Floid made. Have you considered the possibility that some of this "rip off pricing" has been to genereate R&D funds for things like the KickFlash, Delfina Flipper, and the Catweasel Mk3?
Think of it this way. Inititially the $120 price tag is intended to cover all costs (R&D, QA, manufacturing, support) to produce the board, plus a small profit. After a while, Jens recoups his R&D on the card itself and the demand is sufficient that he can produce card in larger lots and reduce manfucaturing costs (though manufacturing will probaly go up as the market it saturated). He could slash the price of the card and pass the savings on to the consumer... But his consumers keep pestering him for a PCI version of his Catweasel card. The problem is, he has no where near the money it would take for the R&D of such a card... So what is he to do, keep the price of the Catweasel at $120 and use the funds it generates to work on the Catweasel Mk3. As an offshoot, the Flipper interface designed for the Catweasel can now be incorporated into other products (i.e Delfina Flipper), effectively reducing their cost.
Oh and one last thought. Jens isn't the only one that sets the price of his products. You have to consider the retail markup as well. Take for example the DICE C compiler... It was released as freeware a while back, but at least one retailer has it listed for $90 on their site. Granted, they probably spent quite a bit for it when it was still a commercial product. But can you really justify that price for media and a bound manual?
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@Ilwrath:
What results do you get if you benchmark it with ttcp and what cpucard is your amiga equipped with?.. and just for the sake of asking, have you tried it with AmiTCP/Genesis?
Amiga version of ttcp (http://www.aminet.net/comm/tcp/AmiTCP_ttcp10.lha)
Windows version of ttcp (http://renoir.csc.ncsu.edu/ttcp/W95-98-NT/ttcpw.zip)
Sourcecode for ttcp (http://ftp.sunet.se/ftp/pub/network/monitoring/ttcp/ttcp.c)
/Patrik
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Well maybe I`m a strange guy, but when I found out the X-Suft was a two piece card, the only thought that came to my mind was: "clever idea".
I got it new for the full price and didn`t see any reason for complain.
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Wow you all slammed me hard here. I guess what I am saying is its hard to see how that interface can cost $115. The ISA cards are crap and cheap. I would say he would have made a better deal if he just sold the adapter with a list of support cards for like $75 or something.
Further up someone mentioned it was better to sell to a lot of users for $5 then to a few for $20. I agree. I think if he sold that card for $75 a lot more people with big box amiga computer would get one. The price alone is what kept me from getting one back when I first saw it.
I got a Mediator and a Mirage tower for $500. Now one may think crap what a lot of money, but when I looked at what I could add to it its a better deal.
I could have spent $200 for a Amiga CVPPC card (Hado ne, but becided the point) Then another $175 for a Delfina or like sound card, then another $120 for the Xsurf card and still not have a tower for what I paid for the mediator. Now sure you all say what about the cards you need to still add??? Well I got a TrendNET 10/100 card for $5 new. I had a voodoo 3000 and got a few more free, but even on ebay they are $20 all the time. The sound card I use now I only paid $8 new for it. Its a FM801 based card and sounds just as good as the Delfina a friend has. Pluss all the other cards I can get. Sure the spider is a rebadged card, but its only $50 compaired to the slower $120 again cards from other makers for the amiga.
It all goes back to the fact that this card should have sold for no more then $75 and he would have sold a LOT more at that. The work in the A2000/3000/4000 which several people still have and use.
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NightShade737 wrote:
Right, so your arguments basically say that, if you cant do it yourself cheaper, then you can't argue.
Nope, what MikeyMike was saying is that it`s clear you have no idea how much it costs to produce electronic goods in small quantities.
If you feel it`s a rip off, why not tell us how much you realistically think an X-Surf can be made for in a run of 100 cards?
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@Patrik-
I can no longer benchmark this card, as it fried itself. It was in a 4000D with SuperBuster 11 and a CyberStorm 060 Mk2.
I never got the card properly working with my old AmiTCP 2.x, and didn't have Genesis at the time (before OS3.9 was released). Miami was the only modern TCP stack I had. I will say the MNI driver integration was very slick and easy to configure with MiamiDX.
Thanks for the link to ttcp. I currently have a C=2065 in the same machine, which I can post marks from to back up my assertation that cards from 10 years earlier produce better speeds, if someone would be kind enough to post some MNI figures from an X-Surf on a similiar machine.
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Hi everyone!
In the light of this thread I took the opportunity and benchmarked a friends X-Surf 1, mounted in his A3000 with ttcp (http://www.aminet.net/comm/tcp/AmiTCP_ttcp10.lha) and here are the results:
Amiga = Amiga A3000 030@25MHz/X-Surf 1/AmigaOS3.1, AmiTCP4.3
PC = Dell Latitude CPi PII@300MHz/Netgear FA411/Linux 2.4.25
Mac = IBook G3-750FX@800MHz/Builtin NIC/MacOS 10.3.3
Switch = HP Procurve 408
TCP: Amiga->PC
ttcp-t: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001 tcp -> 10.95.1.73
ttcp-t: 16777216 bytes in 44.04 real seconds = 372.03 KB/sec +++
ttcp-t: 2048 I/O calls, msec/call = 22.02, calls/sec = 46.50
ttcp-t: 0:44real
TCP: PC->Amiga
ttcp-r: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001 tcp
ttcp-r: 16777216 bytes in 32.56 real seconds = 503.19 KB/sec +++
ttcp-r: 2302 I/O calls, msec/call = 14.48, calls/sec = 70.70
ttcp-r: 0:32real
UDP: Amiga->PC
ttcp-t: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001 udp -> 10.95.1.73
ttcp-t: 16777216 bytes in 28.40 real seconds = 576.90 KB/sec +++
ttcp-t: 2054 I/O calls, msec/call = 14.16, calls/sec = 72.32
ttcp-t: 0:28real
TCP: Amiga->Mac
ttcp-t: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001 tcp -> 10.95.1.10
ttcp-t: 16777216 bytes in 43.18 real seconds = 379.43 KB/sec +++
ttcp-t: 2048 I/O calls, msec/call = 21.59, calls/sec = 47.43
ttcp-t: 0:43real
TCP: Mac->Amiga
ttcp-r: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001 tcp
ttcp-r: 16777216 bytes in 30.36 real seconds = 539.66 KB/sec +++
ttcp-r: 2308 I/O calls, msec/call = 13.47, calls/sec = 76.02
ttcp-r: 0:30real
UDP: Amiga->Mac
ttcp-t: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001 udp -> 10.95.1.10
ttcp-t: 16777216 bytes in 30.06 real seconds = 545.04 KB/sec +++
ttcp-t: 2054 I/O calls, msec/call = 14.99, calls/sec = 68.33
ttcp-t: 0:30real
Switch = DLink DES-1008D
TCP: Amiga->PC
ttcp-t: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001 tcp -> 10.95.1.73
ttcp-t: 16777216 bytes in 44.10 real seconds = 371.52 KB/sec +++
ttcp-t: 2048 I/O calls, msec/call = 22.05, calls/sec = 46.44
ttcp-t: 0:44real
TCP: PC->Amiga
ttcp-r: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001 tcp
ttcp-r: 16777216 bytes in 32.54 real seconds = 503.50 KB/sec +++
ttcp-r: 2306 I/O calls, msec/call = 14.45, calls/sec = 70.87
ttcp-r: 0:32real
UDP: Amiga->PC
ttcp-t: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001 udp -> 10.95.1.73
ttcp-t: 16777216 bytes in 28.34 real seconds = 578.12 KB/sec +++
ttcp-t: 2054 I/O calls, msec/call = 14.13, calls/sec = 72.48
ttcp-t: 0:28real
TCP: Amiga->Mac
ttcp-t: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001 tcp -> 10.95.1.10
ttcp-t: 16777216 bytes in 41.66 real seconds = 393.28 KB/sec +++
ttcp-t: 2048 I/O calls, msec/call = 20.83, calls/sec = 49.16
ttcp-t: 0:41real
TCP: Mac->Amiga
ttcp-r: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001 tcp
ttcp-r: 16777216 bytes in 30.18 real seconds = 542.88 KB/sec +++
ttcp-r: 2307 I/O calls, msec/call = 13.40, calls/sec = 76.44
ttcp-r: 0:30real
UDP: Amiga->Mac
ttcp-t: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001 udp -> 10.95.1.10
ttcp-t: 16777216 bytes in 30.06 real seconds = 545.04 KB/sec +++
ttcp-t: 2054 I/O calls, msec/call = 14.99, calls/sec = 68.33
ttcp-t: 0:30real
(edit): I would say that these results are really good, especially considering that the Amiga is only powered by a 030@25MHz.
Have fun!
/Patrik
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This was the only test I ran, since it's really not a fair fight. My Amiga rig outspecs yours by quite some distance.
Amiga 4000/CyberStorm Mk2 060 @50mhz / Amiga 2065 network card / OS3.9 Genesis IP stack
PC SlotA Athlon @650 / Windows 2000 Server / RealTek PCI
Switch Junk EtherEngine 800S [10/100 / 8port] (budget special)
Your Score:
TCP: Amiga->PC
ttcp-t: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001 tcp -> 10.95.1.73
ttcp-t: 16777216 bytes in 44.04 real seconds = 372.03 KB/sec +++
ttcp-t: 2048 I/O calls, msec/call = 22.02, calls/sec = 46.50
ttcp-t: 0:44real
My Score:
6.Ram Disk:> ttcp -t 192.168.0.1 ttcp-t: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001 tcp -> 192.168.0.1
ttcp-t: socket
ttcp-t: connect
ttcp-t: 19983000 bytes in 27.42 real seconds = 711.79 KB/sec +++
ttcp-t: 2440 I/O calls, msec/call = 11.51, calls/sec = 89.00
ttcp-t: 0:27real
Like I said... It's not a fair fight. My Amiga is a higher spec. But when I was running the XSurf, it turned in a performance a lot closer to yours than it does to my 2065.
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@nightshade
I have seen you rant on numerous web sites about amiga hardware costs.
nightshade here is a challange for you.
get an Xsurf or a picture of an xsurf get a list of all components on the board.
price how much it would cost you to buy 100 pieces of each part. Get the quotes and post them here
if the cost of all the components is less than $35 dollars per board I will buy you an Xsurf.
remember the boards still have to be assembled, shipped to dealers and the dealers have to make a few bucks say like $5 or tens dollars or they won't even bother to sell your product. even with you making zero profit that board would cost the public $90.00
kgrach
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Actually, curiousity got the best of me, so I ran all relevant tests. Here's the results:
Amiga -> PC (TCP)
6.Ram Disk:> ttcp -t 192.168.0.1 ttcp-t: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001 tcp -> 192.168.0.1
ttcp-t: socket
ttcp-t: connect
ttcp-t: 19983000 bytes in 27.42 real seconds = 711.79 KB/sec +++
ttcp-t: 2440 I/O calls, msec/call = 11.51, calls/sec = 89.00
ttcp-t: 0:27real
Amiga -> PC (UDP)
6.Ram Disk:> ttcp -t -u 192.168.0.1 ttcp-t: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001 udp -> 192.168.0.1
ttcp-t: socket
ttcp-t: 19983000 bytes in 23.45 real seconds = 832.21 KB/sec +++
ttcp-t: 2444 I/O calls, msec/call = 9.82, calls/sec = 104.22
ttcp-t: 0:23real
PC -> Amiga (TCP)
D:\WORK> ttcp -t 192.168.0.43 ttcp-t: buflen=8192, nbuf=2048, align=16384/0, port=5001 tcp -> 192.168.0.43
ttcp-t: socket
ttcp-t: connect
ttcp-t: 19583920 bytes in 28.05 real seconds = 681.89 KB/sec +++
ttcp-t: 2446 I/O calls, msec/call = 11.74, calls/sec = 87.21
PC -> Amiga (UDP)
* Clearly invalid results [>11000KB/sec -- not sure why?]
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What sites exactly have I been ranting on?
Anyway, I can't find any pictures in a high enough res to be able to check all of the components, and I also wouldn't have time to anyway.
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@Ilwrath:
Actually, curiousity got the best of me, so I ran all relevant tests. Here's the results:
Cheers :=)
PC -> Amiga (UDP)
* Clearly invalid results [>11000KB/sec -- not sure why?]
As UDP does neither guarantee or check if data arrives, the pc will push as much packets it can at the current link speed, disregarding if the other end can cope with it or not, which is the reason for the high results. In this case, it will just end up with the switch throwing most packets away and the ttcp app on the Amiga shouldnt consider it as a completed session as it hasnt been able to recieve enough packets. I also tried a this with a crossover cable to get the linkspeed down to 10mbit, but as the Amiga I benchmarked cant cope with a fully utilized 10mbit connection either, that didnt work. In short - for the UDP tests of ttcp to work, the reciever must be able to cope with the packet-rate the sender can manage to send.
Just as a sidenote, the results you got with your A4000 + CSPPC + A2065 look very similar to the results I got with my A4000 + CSPPC + A2065 ;=).
/Patrik
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@Patrik-
Thanks for the UDP info. I knew UDP wouldn't try to resend lost data, but I was assuming it had some throttling mechanism. (Hey, it was late at night. haha!)
Just as a sidenote, the results you got with your A4000 + CSPPC + A2065 look very similar to the results I got with my A4000 + CSPPC + A2065 ;=).
Actually, mine is only a CyberStorm Mk2 060, not a PPC. But, yes, it's not very surprising that it would turn in similiar marks to a Mk3 060/PPC, considering the stack and app are 68k. ;-)
In retrospect, those XSurf numbers don't look horrible, and would actually result in better performance than my XSurf ever got. Maybe I just had a lemon, all the way around. I still wouldn't recommend the card... even to an enemy.
I hadn't run ttcp before.... But for a large file transfer (FTP) between my Amiga and my server, my XSurf would average around 200kB/sec, while my 2065 goes to just a hair under 700kB/sec.
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Reminds me an old thread (http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=5559) about this topic...
A2065 hasn't a RJ45 plug isn't this true? How you plug it in modern 10/100 cards? Do you use some kind of hub (multiple jacks?)
Would it be possible to built a Zorro-III 100Mbps eth card (equals ~12.5MB/sec transfer speeds)? A recent benchmark on my ZIII gfx card showed a 7MB/sec transfer rate...
________
Iolite vaporizer (http://vaporizers.net/portable-vaporizers)
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@Cass
Problem is, you will hardly any 100MBit chips with an ISA-interface, while
that is no prob for 10MBit chips. And building a Z2-to-PCI interface costs much
more than a Z2-to-ISA interface.
Make it an Z3-2-PCI interface, combined with the low number that can expected
to be sold (~100), and you might end up at over 200Euro ......
And you won't be able to sell even 100 at that price ....
But really is that a problem ? You got Amigas with PCI-bridges, you got
Amigas with HighWay/Algor (allowing for the Norway-upgrade), you got the X-Surf,
and you got lots of 2nd hand cards.
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@Cass:
I use a 10BaseT transceiver connected to the AUI-port of the A2065 to get a RJ45 connector. There are lots of different transceivers, I happen to use this (http://www.alliedtelesyn.nl/allied/products/viewproduct.asp?category=19&id=140&country=264&lang=en) one as I got it with the A2065 card.
It would indeed be possible to build a ZorroIII 10/100Mbps ethernet NIC. The bandwidth of the ZorroIII bus would be adequate if the NIC was constructed well as the ZorroIII bus can do over 15MByte/Sec with a CV64 and an appropriate CPU-card (such as for example the Commodore original 030 card or the CSPPC). To fully utilize a full duplex 100mbit connection, a bandwidth of approximately 25MByte/sec would be required, but this bandwidth would seldom be needed during normal operation.
Anyhow, the ZorroIII bus would not be the limiting factor of speed if such a card would be produced. Given that the card was constructed in a really good way with support for scatter/gather dma transfers, delayed interrupts, hardware checksum offload and maybe even more features to reduce system load, there would still exist some big performance hinders.
These are a combination of the SanaII-standard, the current TCP/IP stacks and the socket api (the socket api is almost impossible to keep given the current AmigaOS functionality if one wants to remove the negative impact it has on performance). As it is right now, these hinders put too much stress is put on the memory-system and cpu... and the fact that almost none of the existing cards support any of the hardware features I listed above (the one on the DKB-wildfire supports DMA transfers if I am not mistaken) makes the situation even worse... ever wondered why Amigas even when equipped with a 68060 currently has problems fully utilizing even a 10Mbit link?
If anyone is interested in this subject, a good article can be found here (http://www.cs.duke.edu/ari/publications/end-system.pdf).
/Patrik
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ever wondered why Amigas even when equipped with a 68060 curently has problems fully utilizing even a 10Mbit link?
Sure Patrik, as I mentioned our previous discussion/thread... Thanks for the insightful explanation :-).
@Kronos
You got a point, but I asked if it was technically feasible.
________
Brunette movies (http://www.fucktube.com/categories/15/brunette/videos/1)
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@All:
I guess most of you already know this, but to get the most speed out of your network-cards, use AmiTCP/Genesis as it is the most efficient TCP/IP stack available... if Olaf Barthel by any chance would be reading this: I would gladly buy a copy of your Roadshow TCP/IP stack right now :).
Have fun!
/Patrik
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Do you now if Genesis tcp stack support VPN connections ? because I use miami deluxe and one of my connection (critical) is a VPN connection..
I have used genesis before and I can confirm that genesis with cnet.device is more than 2x faster than miami deluxe with cnet.device.
If genesis support vpn then is a matter of time to switch again to genesis.
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@StormLord:
As far as I know, it doesnt support VPN. If you want to use AmiTCP/Genesis with a VPN connection, my advice would be to get a old pentium, run Linux on it and use it as a VPN router. This solution should be much faster as the Amiga will get a faster TCP/IP stack plus it is relieved from the VPN job which then is done by the Linux box instead.
/Patrik
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Acill wrote:
I just got an X-surf II for free out of a trashed A2000 I found at a yard sale here. It works and thats a great deal for me. The thing that pissed me off though is what the X-surf II card IS. This thing is nothing more then a $5 Realtek based 8029 chip ISA card stuck on a custom ZII adapter board. I looked and see these sell for $120 at most places. Thats a damn shame. I see no reason they should be any more then $50-75 MAX. This s yet another hardware company taking a cheap card and adapting to use on an Amiga then marking it up for max profits. This is going to kill the Amiga all over if new stuff comes out and they mark it up just because it works on Amiga.
Hi,
I discussed this thread with Jens yesterday and he tells me he tried to post a reply but wasn't allowed.
Here is a snippet from him:
"QUOTE"
Read the thread, tried to post a reply, and got the message "you don't have the right to post in this thread". Not sure why, but I'm pretty pissed, because it was a long post explaining all the deatils involved, for example
the custom metal bracket that's even more expensive than the ISA card itself, and software updates costing more than $10,000.00,- until today, but being free for every X-Surf and X-Surf 2 customers.
"END QUOTE"
and that's just for the X-Surf, Jens makes excellent products all round and all take massive development.
Who pays for it?
The end user to a point and Jens to another point I know for a fact that he has written off thousands of dollars in development costs on more than one occasion.
Regs
Otpsoft
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If he wrote a very long response his session probably timed out. Happens to me every once in a while. There are a couple ways to cope with this though. You can copy your message to the clipboard before submitting a post, so you can paste it back in after loggin back in. Or better yet, compose the message 'offline' in a text editor.
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Sorry, what? Software updates costing $10,000? Where? What are we talking about?
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"get an Xsurf or a picture of an xsurf get a list of all components on the board.
price how much it would cost you to buy 100 pieces of each part. Get the quotes and post them here"
Yes but remember, the Surf itself is an old ISA card which means he isn't manufacturing them at all, only the adapter, which would have barely any parts at all (that is if I am reading the other posts correctly).
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Did you ever think about how much time and effort is necessary to develop drivers and such? E.g. for the X-Surf, you not only get a SANA-II driver, there is also an MNI driver and a dedicated PPPoE device, specifically written for the X-Surf to let users with Genesis, AmiTCP and Miami use the various DSL providers (the only other stack with PPPoE is MiamiDx, which is out of sale). Also, you get drivers for the IDE ports. There have been several updates over the years and they all have been free.
Providing a network solution is not about soldering parts together. Developing the necessary software for such a small market is not cheap at all (and in fact, I wonder if it ever has a return of investment). Calling the X-Surf a scam is really disgusting and I would understand Jens being pissed off.
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Maybe Don Lapre should get into the Amiga market.
http://www.information-entertainment.com/Business/facts.html
:lol:
All jokes aside though, Jens busts his ass making some nice Amiga hardware, he works hard and does the best he can given the way the Amiga market is.
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I own an X-Surf II and I'm very happy with it. First off, all Amiga cards today are very expensive. I had already forked out a heap of money on my A1200T when I got my ADSL. I had a graphics card, a big tower case, a Z-IV busboard etc. Now, I had three choices:
1) Get a PCI busboard, buy a Voodoo card, get a PCI NIC.
2) Try to find a PCMCIA card that works with the CNet drivers and get someone to solder a gayle reset fix, then angle the PCMCIA port so I can fit a card inside the tower.
3) Buy an X-Surf II
Option 1 was too expensive and option 2 was to difficult and risky so I opted for the X-Surf II. Sure, it set me back about $100 and I was suprised to see it was a two-piece card even though I don't really mind as long as it works. And it works perfectly fine.
Besided I've never had to buy drivers for the two IDE ports, they came along on the included driver CD and works swell. I've had both CD-ROMs and hard drives hooked up to them and there's never been any problem.
Now, as an Amiga consumer you have to be a little cautious since it's a small market and to be on the safe side you always have to check things up. If you look at the Big Book Of Amiga Hardware (http://hard-ware.de/amiga) you can clearly see that the X-Surf is a two-peice card.
With that in mind, you have to consider the options: Mediator + Voodoo + PCI NIC, PCMCIA NIC (if you have an A1200), The X-Surf or a second hand Zorro NIC or no NIC at all.
It doesn't leave much choice, does it? If you think it's so expensive, don't buy it.
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@carls -
With that in mind, you have to consider the options: Mediator + Voodoo + PCI NIC, PCMCIA NIC (if you have an A1200), The X-Surf or a second hand Zorro NIC or no NIC at all.
It doesn't leave much choice, does it?
No, that it sure doesn't.... And that was the boat I was in back when I bought the XSurf 1 I've been complaining about. (Although with an A4000, I didn't have the option of PCMCIA NIC, or else I would have jumped at it!)
Anyhow, I probably shouldn't have aired my own beefs with the XSurf in this thread. I really didn't think it was a SCAM. I was just very frustrated with the poor quality. After forking over about $140USD for a NIC that was marketted as "premium" I honestly felt ripped off to find an $1 ISA NIC grafted in there. I do believe that the backplane metal cost more than the NIC. I wish I could have had the option to delete the metal, and use a better NIC, though!!! It was the insanely thick metal backplane that caused the card not to fit in my A4000.
Anyhow, I would have gotten over the price, the $1 ISA NIC, and the out-of-spec size, had the thing worked. But it consistantly ran slow (which I blamed on the A4000) and within a little over a year of fairly light use, it fried itself.
That was basically the time I shelved my A4000 and went with a PC as my primary machine. Heck, I built the whole PC for about the same amount as a new XSurf would have cost! And four years later, the junk-ass PC is still running. (24x7 as my gateway/firewall, now... But it still hasn't fried.)
It was later in nostalgia that I won the 2065 auction, and discovered that it performed much better than my XSurf ever did that really rubbed salt in the wound.
If you think it's so expensive, don't buy it.
I think that is what I'm trying to convey. Don't repeat my mistake.
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> The X-Surf or a second hand Zorro NIC or no NIC at all.
I just wanted to remind that there's the nice little Norway 10MBit/TP extension that fits on a Highway or an Algor USB board and has a rather good price/value ratio (and no, it doesn't use a cheap RealTek NIC). Moreover, the Highway/Algor/Norway combo still only uses one zorro slot, not covering the ISA or Video slot. With the Algor, you even get the flashrom for free ;-)
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Sshhh Chris,
We don`t want another thread full of rants by Tjaoz. :pissed: