BeOS PPC Network Cards

My elderly Mac came to me with a Farallon branded DEC 21041 10Mbit ethernet card, which weirdly was not configured in the absolutely borked MacOS 8.5 that was installed on it; but *was* supported by BeOS. And, eventually, by MacOS when I got it upgraded to 8.6 and located drivers for it. Finding drivers for a 1997 network card in 2004 wasn't particularly easy - I can't imagine it'd be practical now at all!



This card has since died. It does not show up in MacOS and hangs BeOS hard seconds after boot if it is installed.

Before I did any proper investigation in to what cards BeOS PPC supports, I dug around my office parts bins for whatever was available in the way of antique components, and I managed to find an original - and Made In Ireland just like my Mac was - 3Com 3C905TX - 5V PCI card that would definitely work in BeOS Intel, and also a much newer Reatek 8139D card which I believe just needs a device ID hex-edit to work on Intel. 




On booting the machine with the 3Com in it, I can see the card present in System Profiler - but it has no drivers; and BeOS does not hang on boot. However, there is no driver for it for MacOS Classic that I am aware of.

BeOS PPC also does not have a driver for it - I'd made the assumption that all PCI network card drivers would have been built for both architectures, but apparently not.

What it does have drivers for is an extremely limited list of the ancient:

* 'ether' - NE2000 and 3C503 ISA cards - the BeBox had ISA ports
* 'etherpci' - NE2000 PCI cards
* 'gce' - Grand Central Ethernet, Apples on-board cards of this era
* 'tlan' - Compaq Netelligent cards
* 'tulip' - DEC chips, including the 10/100 models

My Realtek card would use the 'rtl8139' driver on Intel, so despite there being an 8139 driver for MacOS Classic, I'm not even going to bother trying. Plus its on a low-profile bracket currently anyway so would be dangerously wobbly if put in bare.

But wait! There's a 3C920 driver that also includes the 3C905 which has a PPC build. This sees the card, but it doesn't actually work - net_server may crash on boot up, and you get a 'failed to initialize' error or two after each net_server restart. It does not get DHCP and static addressing also doesn't get you anywhere. I do wonder whether I have enough RAM for it to actually open - the machine has 32MB. Patricks drivers work fantastically on Intel - I've used the wireless ones extensively over the years, and he does have someone using the driver on a BeBox succesfully.

This is also when I discovered the space bar on my only ADB keyboard doesn't work. This computer is getting ridiculously decrepit.

Off to eBay I go, for a new keyboard and most likely a 10/100 DEC card from a known Apple accessory vendor of the 1990s.

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