Card type - early

EEA index Interfaces BBC micro BBC B+ Card - early Card - later RiscPC NIC Others Introduction FileStore MDFS Others Clocks Bridges Misc h/w Testing Misc info

The early card Following the problems with upgrading the BBC micro to use Econet - namely it is fiddly, takes space on the motherboard, and cannot be performed by all users due to the need to solder - Acorn devised the network card. This had the added benefit that if something trashed the line drivers or went further and affected the ADLC, simply take out the damaged card and fit a new one. The Econet module expansion cards were to be used interchangably in: Master 128 and variants Master Compact Master spin-offs, such as the Communicator ET FileStore (both versions) A305/A310/A4x0/A3000/A540/A5000 'Archimedes' variants, such as the R140 etc The early card is distinctive for only four ICs on a fairly sparse card. Some bright spark decided that the Master was fast enough to perform collision detection in software, hence these cards do not offer collision detection. As a consequence of this, it is recommended that you use the later cards instead. Here is a scan of an early style network card. I apologise for the blurriness, however my scanner has extremely precise focusing...