To: Korecky at Detroit Meyers at Federal Nezry at Canada Hill at London Schmidt at Federal Kavanaugh at New Jersey Tenwalde at San Francisco Burns at Santa Clara Dickinson at Federal Scott at St Louis Musser at Chicago Sherriff at Federal Brown at Atlanta Buchholz at Detroit Despain at Chicago Houdek at San Francisco Calhoun at Detroit Junker at Los Angeles Donnelly at Boston Tatum at Los Angeles From: Manley AT Marketing Subject: Ethernet beta Date sent: 12/22/88 4:30 PM Copies: All SEs at Customer Mkt You Tokunaga at Development Humphries Williams at Stamford Hello all, First of all, I want to thank you and your customers for helping to test the Ethernet cartridge. With the wide range of drivers available for the cartridge, it is impossible for us here in Fremont to fully test the product with every network. So far all of our preliminary testing has been very positive and I look forward to hearing the results of your customers testing. The cartridges were packaged up today and shipping will send them all out next week. Following is a list of what you will receive in your cartridge kit: o Ethernet cartridge o Ethernet transceiver and cable (if your customer is using thin ethernet cable) o A diagnostic diskette o A software driver diskette o A preliminary draft of the Owners Guide o A customer letter, test summary sheet, and return envelope These cartridge kits are for the customer sites who have signed up to beta test the cartridge. If you have a need to just demo the cartridge to a particular customer, please use one of the office demo cartridges which will also be shipping this week. (Offices which will be receiving a demo cartridge initially are: New Jersey, Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Federal (2 cartridges), San Francisco, Denver, Los Angeles, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, U.K., and Dallas.) Test feedback is very important! Please ask an SE to get involved with the installation and followup. Heidi and I will bug you weekly to find out how your customers are doing. The beta test period will last until January 20th. We would like to have your customers complete the test summary sheet that is enclosed in their kit so that we know exactly what was tested and if there were any problems. The quicker the test feedback comes in the faster we will be able to release the product for first customer ship. Below are some tips to help your customers get started. 1) If applicable, they will need to assemble their transceiver. This requires removing the two flat head screws on the side of the transceiver and positioning the tap so that the rectangular hole in the case is alligned with the tap. Slide the tap into the transceiver case and make sure the pins in the tap line up with the connector on the circuit board. Reinsert the flat head screws and you're all done. 2) Configuring the cartridge for the different network operating systems varies. If you don't have much experience with the specific network operating system you are connecting the cartridge to, I would recommend involving the Network System Administrator. But, just in case, here are some notes which should help you when configuring the cartridge for use on Banyan, 3Com, and Novell. For more detail, refer to the specific network operating system manuals. a) BANYAN-- Configuring the cartridge on a Banyan network is done thru menus. The first thing you need to do is copy the driver (Intr2ban.com) to the local directory where the Banyan workstation files are stored. Next, bring up the PCConfig (PCConfig.exe) file and select from the menu option 1, Network Card Settings. A list of card types will be displayed. Select Micom NI5210 Ethernet from the list. Another menu will be displayed asking you to specify the correct I/O address, RAM address, and Interrupt level. Follow the prompts to select the correct parameters and to take you back to the main menu. Next, select from the main menu option 2, Select Default Communciations driver. Again, select Micom NI5210 Ethernet and follow the prompts to save your selections. To sign on to the network, type BAN. b) 3Com 3+-- Copy the driver (5210.sys) to the root directory. If your customer has not already done so, you will need to run the install program to create the config.sys file. During this installation, configure the config.sys file for the 3Com Ethernet board. Next, you will need to edlin the Config.sys file. There will be a line that says"Device = Eth.sys". Edit the line to say "Device = 5210.sys". The default parameters are Int 3, I/O 300, and DMA 1. c) Novell--- Configuring the board for Novell is more complex and is done somewhat differently under version 2.0 and 2.1. o Under 2.0, there are limited combinations of I/O, RAM address, and interrupt levels. In fact, from what I have been able to ascertain from Novell and Micom, you should only use Interrupt 2, I/O 300, and RAM address D0000 with this board. To configure the cartridge, you will need to copy the Shelldrv.obj file to the ethernet directory on the generate shell diskettes titled Genshell-1 and Genshell-2. (Be sure to make a backup copy as this will overwrite the existing one.) Run the generate shell program to put the driver in the Anet3 com file. Type Anet3 to sign on. Note: The generate shell program reads the diskette labels so if you make copies of the Genshell-1 and Genshell-2 diskettes they must be labeled Genshell-1 and Genshell-2. o Under 2.1, there are more combinations of I/O, RAM address, and interrupt levels allowed. You will need to follow the instructions in the manual to generate a new shell file which uses the driver shipped on the diskette. When you run the Shell gen program (SHGEN), you will be given a menu with possible combinations to choose from. Ensure that the hardware settings on the board match the software settings you select. With our testing we were successful with Int 2, I/O 300, and RAM address C0000. FYI: Under 2.1, the network shell has two parts. The first part, Net3, directs workstation requests to DOS or Netware. The second part, IPX, directs network messages to the file server. 3) The rule of thumb when configuring our Ethernet cartridge is to configure it for a Micom Interlan NI5210 board. Our cartridge is electrically compatible with that board and we use the drivers written for the NI5210. I will be out of town until January 3rd so if you have any questions, send me a note and I'll respond as soon as I get back. During the test period, Heidi You and myself will be available to help. Enjoy the holidays.