Asking for networking hardware and AmigaOS devices for networking comparison

[Jose]

Finally  getting a network card for my A1200, but of networking I don't understand a sh*t! With all the options on network cards available and also some different devices available, each supporting different cards,  I don't know what to choose so...

1- Which device is currently the best in terms of features, SPEED, stability, compatibility etc.. This affects the card I'll choose. I read cnet is cool.

2- Well, any particular card that is cool and you could recommend?. Some are easy to get on eBay.

3- If I remember correctly 10/100Mb/s cards won't work, or they'll work only on 10Mb/s?  

4- What's the speed limit of the PCMCIA network cards that work on the A1200? I remember reading reports of about 64Mb/s wich is slow!! Is that a limitation on the Amiga side?
I searched some SCSI network adapters around and couldn't find any.. that would be faster...

5- Any other advice..?

THX

[Jose]

I have an A1200, Blizzard 1240/40 wich SCSI2 by way..

[whabang]

The cards will probably be able to connect to a 100 mbps-network, but the actual speed won't be more than 6-7 mbps at best IIRC.

[redrumloa]

Towered with Zorro?

[Jose]

@red
No. I have a spare A1200 mobo to do that though :-o,  but I'm out of cash... :-(  :-D

[Jose]

@whabang
6-7 mbps ?!! That's not that bad comparing to 64Mb/s !. But is that the effective data transmission or the connection speed?

[whabang]

Clarifying:
With a PCMCIA-NIC you might get a connection speed of 100mbps, but the actual transfers are unlikely to be faster than 6 or 7 mbps.

[HotRod]

The speed for amiga-pc while copying a file through FTP is at most 800kb/s using Genesis and a FastEthernet-card.

With a 10Mbit-card you'll get 600kb/s using Genesis.

With MiamiDx the speed will be 300-400kb/s.

[Jose]

Hmm, somewhat different speeds you two mention....
Anyway, I got another question: Since the A1200's PCMCIA port can do around 3.5MB/s (or was that Mb/s??) with the Squirrel SCSI interface, would it be possible to use a 100Mb/s card even though getting less speed, but still faster than using 10Mb/s?

I'd still like some advice as to which card to choose, a NE2000 compatible or a 3Com Etherlink III compatibles...

[x56h34]

Jose, where are you from?

[mikeymike]

Erm, hold on - on my A1200 , with a 10mbit/sec PCMCIA card, at best I get ~292KB/sec, regardless of what service/software is being used... latest cnet driver as well.

[Jose]

@x56h34
Portugal

[x56h34]

Check out this e-bay auction:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3458515647

I just received 5 of those from UK to Canada. IMO, the best PCMCIA card to be used with A600/A1200 as it requires no dongle. Everythign is built in. Only 3GBP per piece.

[mikeymike]

Just bought one :-)

[Jose]

@x56h34
Well, the price is really great but I think I prefer a 10/100Mb one. Who knows maybe someone will be able writte a driver  to get more speed with one, even if not fullspeed....