Uncreative Labs

Joined: 07 Aug 2011 Posts: 24 Location: Las Vegas

I was given an old 486 computer that had been pretty much stripped out. The only things left inside the case were a jumble of expansion cards, one of them a 3Com Etherlink lll 1995 3C5098-C ISA card. I know it's compatible with my 5150, but I need to know where to get the DOS drivers for it and how to include the driver in the configsys file so when I boot the computer, the card is accessed. If this works, can I use it to access files and programs stored on my "host" computer running Windows 7?

Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 5:15 am

Lan Manager should support it, I think. I had a couple 3C509B (not 8 ) cards that ran fine in DOS.

I hadn't tried using them on an 8-bit PC, though.

(Edited: Stupid emoticons.)

Joined: 07 Aug 2011 Posts: 24 Location: Las Vegas

Hey, thanks. I'll look for Lan Manager and give it a try.

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

08/22/2011 12:38 PM <DIR> .
08/22/2011 12:38 PM <DIR> ..
02/12/2000 03:11 PM 3,840 3C5096_1.TXT
02/06/2000 11:44 AM 1,114,721 3C509X1.EXE
02/06/2000 11:48 AM 849,119 3C509X2.EXE
02/06/2000 11:35 AM 82,565 CRDFND.EXE
08/22/2011 12:38 PM 0 files
5 File(s) 2,050,245 bytes
2 Dir(s) 271,090,167,8
the big exe files will make a floppy disk.

Joined: 07 Aug 2011 Posts: 24 Location: Las Vegas

Where can I find this? It looks promising. Also, while looking at these files, it is apparent that the card won't be compatible with my 5150 PC as it only has 640K of RAM total. I can't add any more. Also, there is no hard disk in this machine. It runs on 2 360K floppy disks.

If my assumptions are correct, I'll be adding this card to my "For Sale" list.

wdegroot wrote:

08/22/2011 12:38 PM <DIR> .
08/22/2011 12:38 PM <DIR> ..
02/12/2000 03:11 PM 3,840 3C5096_1.TXT
02/06/2000 11:44 AM 1,114,721 3C509X1.EXE
02/06/2000 11:48 AM 849,119 3C509X2.EXE
02/06/2000 11:35 AM 82,565 CRDFND.EXE
08/22/2011 12:38 PM 0 files
5 File(s) 2,050,245 bytes
2 Dir(s) 271,090,167,8
the big exe files will make a floppy disk.

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

If I had an address I will send them.
I likely have a card or two as well
(somewhere)

Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2011 12:22 am

Walter,

I think we could put them up for download here if you want to send them to me. Make sure you use Puckdropper (at) yahoo (dot) com and not Puckdropper (at) fastmail (dot) fm

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

I have sent the files
BUT I see an immediate problem
the self-extracting exe files seem to be
from the original 3com downloads
as I only use DXP
and these are something else
so the integrity should be ok
BUT the archives will not fit on a 360 floppy.
a 1.44 floppy drive will work with a 720k disk on an pc/XT ( nothing special required)
But a 1.44 floppy with a 1.44 disk requires a special controller.

so.. some means must be fould to transfer the files to the XT or PC class computer.

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 377 Location: Stuttgart, Germany

I just found the exe files on the internet. The second one of the files contains the dos/wfw311 etc. drivers. The first one is win9x.
So I focused on the second file. It can be extracted with WinRAR (and I am sure with other compression tools as well).
The contents are about 1.3mb in size so they will not fit onto a 720k floppy.
However if you take just the dos drivers for LAN Manager and the files in the root directory of the archive the sizes seems to be only 32kb and 652kb respectively. That would fit onto a 720kb disk.

Maybe I have a flaw in my thought process but shouldn't it work to format a 720kb disk in Windows 7 (or XP Mode) and then dump the files onto it?
It's been a while since I last used floppy disks but that's what I remember.

Joined: 07 Aug 2011 Posts: 24 Location: Las Vegas

OK. By the looks of it, the card will be pretty much useless for me. So, I'm back to my original plan. I do have several ISA cards, so I'll bundle them up and sell them all off. If anyone is interested, I'll send you a list of what I have. Also if someone DOES have an etherenet adapter card that will work in my IBM5150PC, and you're willing to sell it, or trade, let me know.

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

I dent two directories
one was for dos.
win 31 ran on top of dos
the isa 3 com cards were used with dos and win 3.1
I do not see why you say they are USELESS. what did people do then?
when I worked at GE they had xt and at class computers on the network
so it must have been possible,
remeber a 1.44 or a 1.2 floppy us totally useless on an xt class pc without a special controller
but a 720k can b3e used
with device drivers, and a version of dos that supports 3.5" disks you can format a 720 or even a 1.44 floppy(with tape over the second hole) in a xt ( 8088 ) machine.

early ibm 286's have problems with 3.5" disks but not an xt.

I would, if possible format the disk in an older pc, not a xp or win 7 nmachine.
even with a PII and win 98, it is difficult to lie to the computer.
I did manage to format a 1.44 didk to dos 2.10 -360k buy it was hard.

BTW older 16 bit vga cards often work in an xt class pc, set the switches to NO VIDEO
and insulate the extra gold finmgers.