NE1000

The Novell Eagle NE1000 network card is from 1985 marketed 8- bit Ethernet adapter. The NE1000 was an open eight -bit ISA bus design for Ethernet cards. NE2000 was the 16- bit ISA counterpart, the design of both cards is almost the same and is based, as well as the WD80x3, SMC Ultra, 3c503 and NE2000 cards on the National Semiconductor DP8390 chip. Both products are aimed at the budget-conscious low-end range. Novell introduced both open designs are available with the intention to bring as many manufacturers for the construction of such maps. Already in the design consideration was given to low production costs, their own processors - High -end cards for example Schneider & Koch (now SysKonnect ) had their own 68000 CPU and cost almost as much as a former PC - and everything that could otherwise be expensive (RAM), was specifically avoided. This entry-level price for Ethernet cards should be reduced - which also managed sustainably - especially to Novell Netware -based networks to open more markets. NE1000 Ethernet cards dominated, despite the shortcomings in the design, at the end of the 8- bit ISA market.

The success of the NE1000 cards was lower than that of its sister card NE2000, but big enough to remove the then arch-rival 3Com 3C501 with his competitor, but also other competitors significant market share by far. The much lower compared to the NE2000 success lay primarily in the relatively late appearance of this 8- bit cards. For 1984, IBM released the 16 -bit successor to the IBM PC XT, IBM PC AT 80286 out on base. These systems had, as well as almost all of the following in the years to PCs, by default a 16 -bit ISA bus. Since Novell could not foresee the rapid spread of the 16 -bit machine, yet wanted to offer a card for the abundant 8 -bit computers, IBM PC XT and its clones, it was decided for both an 8- bi t and for a 16-bit card. Of course there are comparatively much less NE1000 clones. Asian card manufacturer, which only began in the 1990s with the producing NE2000 -compatible cards, renounced the 8- bit variant. Some clone manufacturers went here but special way, they could be configured and operated via a jumper as 8- bit NE1000 cards developed 16 -bit NE2000 cards. A portion of the card then put logically not the motherboard, but was hanging in the air.

Almost all NE1000 cards and their clones are classic ISA cards and therefore have jumpers. Often the assignments of the jumpers are printed on the card. This is in comparison to the frequent jumperless (non Plug and Play) NE2000 clones a great advantage, because the search for the clone to the appropriate configuration program and the proper boot disk can be omitted here. Also, there is virtually no plug and play variants, at the time of this innovation 8- bit network cards such as the NE1000 were already largely disappeared from the market.

• Network device
• Plug-in card
• Novell