To further clarify...
Edited slightly -- added the second paragraph from the bottom.
AndyFC wrote:
Using the 3c589 device from Aminet (which I would have thought would work with at least the second of the three listed cards) in Genesis, The wizard detects the cards but does not get a BootP answer.
BootP is an older way to configure a network 'Plug'n'Play.' DHCP is the new hotness, used on most LANs, and cable modem networks that act like them.
If you don't have a BootP server on your LAN, which you don't, then you obviously won't get a response and nothing will be configured for you.
With the 3c589D, if I manually enter an IP, DNS, gateway etc I get an ethernet activity light on the cable modem, but then if I go into AWeb2 (the version supplied with OS 3.9) I cannot view any online web pages - the error is the same as if I have no internet connection at all.
Ethernet is only one possible physical layer for "Internet," and if the lights go on and perhaps blink when you do stuff, chances are that aspect is working fine. Now all you have to do is get your IP stack (Genesis) configured properly, which is a headache, because it doesn't support the autoconfiguration protocol, and service providers *rely* on same to be able to dynamically assign IP addresses.
I have powered off my modem and back on when it was plugged into teh Amiga because I read somewhere that it caches the MAC address of the adapter it is connected to, but this will clear if it is turned off for 10 seconds.
Hmm. As I've understood it, generally cable modems have their own MACs as regards authentication on the provider side, and probably outright ignore the MACs on the LAN side (since they're really just bridging ethernet packets onto the cable modem DOCSIS melange, and are only expected to be connected to one host ... or not; I'm not sure if the early raw-bridging designs were DOCSIS or not)...
However, I believe I was wrong in the above when saying you *should* leave the modem on... it really shouldn't matter, and if it doesn't, you can then play safe by turning it off before you connect the Amiga.
To *prove* it doesn't matter, turn the modem off while it's connected to your Windows machine, then turn it back on again -- if you don't have to reboot to get online again, you're fine.
[Erm, I should explain: My 'it' is that they could possibly have rigged the DHCP server to release leases when the modem is shut off, because I think DOCSIS can technically allow for things like that. Everyone else's 'it' is that the modem will only talk to the specific ethernet card it was powered up connected to. Needless to say, these two 'it's would conflict as regards making it work, but I've realized mine is extremely unlikely, because rigging DHCP like that would inconvenience their normal Windows users immensely.]
Am I missing something, or am I still using incompatible cards?
The cards are probably fine, but now that you've got the proverbial phone plugged in, you have to tell the IP stack (Genesis) which Internet addresses to 'dial' (as regards the router at the ISP which will send your packets on to the outside world, and the DNS server that will turn '
www.amiga.org' into the destination address for your packets)... and even more importantly, what your own 'phone number' is, so those computers can 'call you back.'
This is made complicated by NTL (like most ISPs) reserving the right to change your 'phone number' whenever they want. (They're not out to be rude -- though they are out to get more money from people who want to run servers and need a static address. It's just that DHCP is a lot easier in practice -- pretty much every platform *except* Amiga has long since gained support for it -- and avoids promising anyone a rose garden that could complicate network restructuring later. It's nice not to have to 'reprogram' all your phones if someone decides to switch your area code, right? DHCP does the same for 'teh intarweb,' with the tradeoff of making it hard for the human behind the keyboard -- and DNS servers, if you ever want to point '
www.myname.com' to your machine -- to ever know what his number actually is.)
[This is where the telephone analogy breaks down... the way IP works, you can always set your own address -- you can type anything valid into the field in Genesis, for instance, and your computer *will* respond to 'calls' to that number. However, you have to use the number *the rest of the world* (your ISP's gateway) expects you to have, or your packets will fly down the wire and go nowhere. For instance, if I set my machine to 5.5.5.5, I could buy a few other computers and set up my own private 'internet' in my house (this is what home routers do, actually, though they use special 'netblocks' of addresses everyone's agreed will never be routed-to across the public Internet)... but my ISP can only take 'calls' for me on 64.252.22.117, because that's part of the block global agreements allow them to route. My 5.5.5.5 computer just wouldn't be able to talk to anything -- the gateway won't let packets from it escape the ISP's network either, for good reason -- and everyone else on the planet trying to reach '5.5.5.5' would get whatever computer is *agreed* to have that address via the global routing arrangements that make 'the Internet' exist.]
