Found an old NIC, wondering what these ports are for

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chaoscontrol

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Aug 15, 2019
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Thanks!

What would a BOOT ROM do anyway if added? And what does the SOS pin do exactly? I can think of what the SMB and RWU do but if anyone has ever used it and can explain would be awesome! :)
 

vanfawx

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Jan 4, 2015
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The BOOT ROM instead of doing PXE network boot, would actually boot a floppy image that you burned onto the ROM. The floppy image would also contain the DOS network drivers for the card as well as your network client, Novell Netware in my case. It allowed for fully diskless network clients. This was back in the DOS days though, and allowed you not to need boot floppies for each of the networks workstations.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
 

chaoscontrol

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Aug 15, 2019
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The BOOT ROM instead of doing PXE network boot, would actually boot a floppy image that you burned onto the ROM. The floppy image would also contain the DOS network drivers for the card as well as your network client, Novell Netware in my case. It allowed for fully diskless network clients. This was back in the DOS days though, and allowed you not to need boot floppies for each of the networks workstations.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
Thanks! This is why I ask these things here. :)

Anyone any idea on the other ports? Maybe some anecdote about how this was used in the dinosaur-age?
 

Wolfstar

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Nov 28, 2015
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What I can tell you is, that card was THE card to use for PCI. I was using... 3C509Bs in my old LEAF router, because all it had was ISA slots, and that was more than enough for my "high-end" 1.5M/384k DSL line, back when DSL had the speed advantage. The 3C905 cards were some of the easiest cards to use for Linux compatibility back then and when I finally got an actual ethernet network set up, I had one of those in my desktop.

Pretty sure I still have one (and one of the 3C509s) somewhere in storage for nostalgia purposes. And while it wasn't the age of the dinosaurs, the wooly mammoths still roamed - this was 1999-2001.
 
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vanfawx

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Jan 4, 2015
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The only other port I can speak to is the "Remote Wakeup Connector", which is for Wake On-LAN (WOL).

Before pervasive on-board networking, if you wanted WOL, and your motherboard supported it, but didn't have on-board networking, you would connect this 2 wire cable between the NIC and the motherboard. If you configured your BIOS correctly, a WOL packet sent to the NIC would bring the machine up out of standby.
 
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chaoscontrol

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Aug 15, 2019
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Thanks guys, really appreciate this information. I've been a sysadmin for about 10 years now but this was all way before my time. Also I find it hard to find anecdotal stories about some of this old-tech even though it seems to have been widely used.