From: msawyer@netcom.com (Matthew Sawyer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Ariadne II Ethernet card Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.hardware Date: 30 Dec 1998 17:02:54 -0500 Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 215 Sender: barrett@relativity.cs.umass.edu Message-ID: <76e7ue$9pe@relativity.cs.umass.edu> Reply-To: msawyer@netcom.com (Matthew Sawyer) Keywords: hardware, networking, Ethernet, commercial X-Review-Number: Volume 1998 Number 26 NNTP-Posting-Host: relativity.cs.umass.edu X-NNTP-Posting-Host: relativity.cs.umass.edu X-Trace: 30 Dec 1998 16:59:46 -0500, relativity.cs.umass.edu Path: rcfnews.cs.umass.edu!not-for-mail Xref: bangor.cs.umass.edu comp.sys.amiga.reviews:579 PRODUCT NAME Ariadne II BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ethernet card with 10Base2 and 10BaseT connectors AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Village Tronic Address: Muhlenstrase 2 31157 Sarstedt Germany Telephone: +49 (0) 5066 / 7013-10 Fax: +49 (0) 5066 / 7013-49 WWW: www.villagetronic.com FTP: ftp.villagetronic.com LIST PRICE $159.00 (US) DEMO VERSION None. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE An unused expansion slot in an A2000, A3000(T) or A4000(T). The board does not come with any cables. I had to purchase a peer-to-peer twisted pair cable (Cost: $6.99) to connect my Amiga to my PC. SOFTWARE TCP/IP software is required to use the card. It comes with a registerable version of Genesis (formerly known as AmiTCP). I am using Miami and only needed to get the updated device driver off the Nordic Global web site (www.nordicglobal.com) COPY PROTECTION None. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 4000 (Desktop), 2 MB Chip RAM, 146 MB Fast RAM 1 internal 1.76 MB floppy 1 4.3 GB Seagate SCSI hard drive 1 internal Toshiba 32x SCSI-2 CD-ROM drive 1 internal Iomega 1.0 GB SCSI-2 Jaz drive phase5 CyberstormPPC accelerator w/200 MHz 604e and 50 MHz 68060 phase5 CyberVision64/3D graphics card Petsoff Delfina Lite sound card Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 17TX Monitor AmigaOS 3.1 (Kickstart 40.68 and Workbench 40.42) Miami v3.2b/Miami Deluxe v0.9a (beta) INSTALLATION Installation was easy. The card is not quite full length and easily fits into any of the expansion slots. It comes with two setup disks that include the necessary device drivers and TCP/IP software. However, the version of the software that came with my card was v1.0 and did not come with the diagnostic tools listed in the user manual. An e-mail to Village Tronic quickly revealed an updated set of install disks (v1.2) on their ftp site. Running the installer on the first disk installs all the necessary drivers and diagnostic tools. REVIEW This is my first ethernet card for an Amiga. As such, I can't compare it to other cards that are available. However, I can tell you that I am extremely pleased with the card. The card comes with two types of connectors 10Base2 (chepernet) and 10BaseT (twisted pair). I am using twisted pair (reversed) from the Ariadne II directly to the ethernet card in my PC. It does not come with any ethernet cables, however they do supply an ethernet "T" connector and a terminating resistor for 10Base2 users. One thing that was interesting about the card is that it has several expansion connectors on it. However, Village Tronic has not announced any expansion options for this board so I don't know if they will ever be used for anything. I have not tried using the card with the supplied Genesis TCP/IP software. I have been using Miami for my PPP connection to my ISP. In order to use PPP and ethernet at the same time, I had to upgrade to Miami Deluxe which is currently in beta test but is available. Being the networking novice I am and the lack of documentation with the beta version of Miami Deluxe, it took me a while to get my Amiga configured so that I could use both PPP (internet) and ethernet (intranet/LAN) at the same time. With a little patience and persistance, I got it working just perfectly. So now my setup looks something like this: PC::Ethernet<--->Ethernet::Amiga::Modem<---->Modem::ISP I can easily pass files back and forth between my Amiga and my PC. Plus, my Amiga acts as an internet gateway so that I can access the internet from either computer seamlessly. There is no noticable slow down when accessing the internet from the PC. File transfers between the Amiga and the PC are fast and error free. Using ftp between the two, I've been getting around 470 kb/s. DOCUMENTATION The board comes with a 34 page user manual. My only comment about it would be that there is only 2 paragraphs about the software installation. This would be fine if the only software provided was just the device driver. There is nothing mentioned about the included Genesis TCP/IP software at all. In fact, I didn't even know it came with Genesis until I ran the installation. However, I should point out that Genesis comes with it's own documentation in HTML format. LIKES The card appears to be well made, was easy to install and has performed above my initial expectations. Plus it wasn't so hard on the wallet. It was much less expensive than any of the other ethernet cards on the market. DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS It would have been nice if they would have mentioned something about Genesis in the user manual. Also, when I e-mailed Village Tronic about the card when it was first announced they told me it came with a 2 year warranty. However, there is no warranty information in the user manual. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS I haven't used any other Amiga ethernet cards, so I can't really compare performance. However, price wise it is much less expensive. BUGS None. VENDOR SUPPORT Excellent. When I inquired about the board via e-mail when it was first announced, they answered all my questions quickly and with courtesy. Same for when I contacted them about the updated installation disks. WARRANTY The user manual doesn't say anything, but I was told via e-mail it is 2 years. CONCLUSIONS I am very pleased with the board and would recommend it highly. I give it 5 out of 5 stars COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1998 Matthew Sawyer This review may be Freely Distributed as long as it is only distributed in it's entirety. You may contact the author at: Matt Sawyer msawyer@netcom.com --- Accepted and posted by Daniel Barrett, comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews Web site: http://math.uh.edu/~barrett/reviews.html