Ref: 03250002
Title: Brief description of the various 3Com EtherLink cards
Date: 08/11/88

Copyright 3Com Corporation, 1991.  All rights reserved.

I have a hard time keeping the various EtherLink cards straight
in my mind.  Can you give me an overview?

A.  The EtherLink 3C501x card (IE1, IE2 or IE4; usually ASSY
1221) is our first generation card and is usually referred to as
our standard entry level IEEE 802.3/Ethernet network adapter for
PCs.  Features include custom VLSI components for exceptionally
high reliability, and an integrated transceiver which drives up
to 1000 feet of thin Ethernet cable or 3280 feet of thick cable.
Its demonstrated MTBF exceeds 179 years!  (An earlier version of
this product is the full-size 3C500, ASSY 34-0780.)

The 3C503 card is our EtherLink II card (IE6), which was
developed as the successor to the EtherLink and includes all its
features.  It is a half-card for easy installation and features
software-selectable DMA channels and interrupt levels and
external or on-board transceiver operation, which allow quick
reconfiguration from the keyboard.

The 3C505 is our EtherLink Plus card (IE3; ASSY 1194).  It is
designed to marry high reliability and high performance for PC
Servers and sophisticated and AT-compatible workstations.  High
performance is achieved by the use of an onboard 80186
microprocessor, 128K to 512K bytes of RAM, 16K to 128K bytes of
ROM, and a FIFO buffered 8 or 16-bit I/O path to maximize host/
adapter data transfer.  This provides onboard processing of
protocol software, buffering of transmit and receive packets, and
high speed 8 or 16-bit host DMA transfers.

The EtherLink/MC (3C523) is for use in a single Micro Channel Bus
expansion slot of an IBM PS/2 Model 50, 60, 80 or compatible PC.
The EtherLink/MC includes an on-board transceiver and can be used
with 3Com's Multi-Connect products that allow communication over
standard telephone wiring.  An optional Prom allows the PS/2 to
boot from a 3+Start network server.
