Uthernet II Taking Pre-Orders!

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gsmcten's picture
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Uthernet II Taking Pre-Orders!

Good Morning All,

I received an A2retrosystems email about the Uthernet II pre-order.

I just reserved myself two new Uthernet II cards at $59.00 each.

What A Bargain!

Here is the link to order:

http://www.a2retrosystems.com/order.htm

Steven Smile

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Re: Uthernet II Taking Pre-Orders!

I guess the main usage of this card would be with adtpro...Is its speed indeed so fast in real life for transferring disks or for emulating virtual drives?

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Re: Uthernet II Taking Pre-Orders!

I am happy to have had the opportunity to beta-test the Uthernet II card. While it is certainly true that the main use of the card is going to be data transfer with ADTpro, surfing the internet and e-mails are also an option. With an additional accelerator, the user experience on a IIe is probably as good as it could be. As long as the website is not too complex or uses to many pictures, the Contiki/Uthernet-combination works quite well.

In any case, the card is highly recommended. I know that other peripheral cards under development are more complex and therefore more expensive to manufacture. Still, wouldn't it be great if something like the TranswarpGS could pop up in the Uthernet's price range?

Just my 50 cents.

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Re: Uthernet II Taking Pre-Orders!

Transwarp is hundred times more complicated than the lan card is. I am still looking for a damaged transwarp gs for reversing purposes...

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Re: Uthernet II Taking Pre-Orders!

I just reserved myself two new Uthernet II cards at $59.00 each.

What A Bargain!

A bargain when compared to Ebay prices, yes. When sold from a2retrosystems, they are always at $59.00 each so no bargain at all.

And I really do not see the reason why there is any advantage what so ever between the uthernet I and II. There is no additional capability for the user of this card, only a technical improvement so that less programming is needed for those who make software for this card.

It always seems crazy to me why these technical improvements are needed because it seems that some people for whatever reason don't want to write the proper code for a product which contains no bugs.

Uthernet II For use with ADTPro? Hello...? The Uthernet I is used with ADTPro.

What would I like to see?

How about an Ethernet/Wireless controller card which comes with a browser that can display newer websites properly?

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Re: Uthernet II Taking Pre-Orders!

Yes, of course. That doesn't change the fact that you need both cards if you want to surf the internet on an Apple II.

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Re: Uthernet II Taking Pre-Orders!

Can't follow that. As far as I know, the Uthernet I is no longer available except as a used card - then, the usual eBay-pricing seems to apply Sad
So - first and foremost - availability is the most important "feature" of the new card - as is, of course, the price compared to some auctions.

Personally, I had been looking for an affordable Uthernet I for quite some time. With the Uthernet II, I finally got quicker file transfer and a more reliable connection than via audio or serial.

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Re: Uthernet II Taking Pre-Orders!

The main reason for the Uthernet II is that the controller chip used for the I is no longer available, but there was still a demand for new cards.

However, it does also have the advantage of having a TCP/IP stack on the chips, which means very resource limited machines and environments (I'm looking at YOU, Apple IIe and ProDOS Dirol could have general purpose networking software written for it that would work. (Notes: ATDPro is NOT "general purpose," and the Marinetti driver in GS/OS has lots more memory and CPU to play with to make the Uthernet I card work so well.)

-Warr

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Re: Uthernet II Taking Pre-Orders!

With the Uthernet II, I finally got quicker file transfer and a more reliable connection than via audio or serial.

If you're talking specifically about the ADTPro use case, that might not be strictly true. Serial got a lot of love and attention in the 2.0 release, with tunable payload length. it makes for some very fast serial transfers - typically faster than IP, actually. And as for reliability... maybe it's just my home network, but I tend to get rock solid transfers with serial, but get the occasional timeout on IP.

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Re: Uthernet II Taking Pre-Orders!

Strange. Using ADTPro via Serial I always get 100% reliable connections. With my Uthernet I the transfers are slower than serial and the connections are completely unreliable. You reset the computer and you get nothing with the Uthernet. The transfers work well on it as long as you do not restart the computer under any circumstances. My guess is that ADTPro has bugs in the code that deals with DHCP.

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Re: Uthernet II Taking Pre-Orders!

ADTPro uses ip65 which has a cheap DHCP client. Marina has a better DHCP client that follows the RFCs more closely.

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Re: Uthernet II Taking Pre-Orders!

Very strange. I use ADT over Uthernet and it is 100% solid for me. That said, I manually assigned it an IP address.

I've used it to transfer over 32MB hard drive partitions, so I would certainly call it reliable.

-Warr

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Re: Uthernet II Taking Pre-Orders!

Got my pre-order in for 3. Woo!

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Re: Uthernet II Taking Pre-Orders!

Where I see the advantage of the Uthernet II over the Uthernet I, is the Chip Set..

The WizNET 5100 "offloads" ALL the TCP/IP overhead from the main CPU.. This means that Speed can be dedicated to and Memory can be freed up to, do other thing...

Not to mention that getting a reasonably priced Uthernet means going for the II, instead of the I..

MarkO

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Re: Uthernet II Taking Pre-Orders!

David: I guess you are right - and your point about the 2.0 is of cause valid. However, serial doesn't seem to work that well in my case, whereas IP is alway solid. Perhaps I should look at my serial connection more closely and perhaps try it with another machine (when it comes to serial, I have been a //c guy almost exclusively).
Thank you for pointing me in that direction.

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