Xircom Pocket Ethernet Adapters on Ebay

[Brutman]

A few notable Xircoms on eBay

• 350432976590 - Bare unit only, used, $15 with shipping. You need to supply a power adapter to make it work.
• 270688682069 - Bare unit with 'PS/2 phantom power cable' - can be powered off of the PS/2 keyboard port. A wee bit expensive - around $30 with shipping.
• 290446248938 - Older model - PE2, not PE3. Probably works well with a packet driver on older machines, but no personal experience. With original packaging and power adapter, under $25 shipped
• 390274666689 - PE3-10BT-AM - supposed to be new, not sure if it is ThinNet, Twisted Pair, or capable of both. $32 with shipping.

As always, I have no personal or financial interest in any of these. I just want to spread the joy of DOS Networking.

[jmetal88]

I've been thinking about getting this Compex one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0550726124

The guy has 10 of 'em.

[Brutman]

If they work, I'd probably order one too just for reference.

The only immediate problem that I can see is how they are powered. If they really have a 'vampire' adapter that leeches off of a keyboard port, we're going to have to do something different for the Jr.

And before you buy, make sure it has a packet driver for DOS. The Xircom PE3 is rock solid in that regard. Others like the Compex or the DLink adapters probably work too, but somebody has to try them out to know.

[jmetal88]

There's a wall wart in the picture, and I've seen similar adapters come with wall warts that have a PS/2 plug for powering these things.

I don't know about the driver, but since it says it's PC/XT compatible, I would hope that means it works on DOS.

EDIT: Yeah, I downloaded the driver archive off DriverGuide, it has DOS NDIS and Packet drivers.

EDIT 2: From the Readme:

The COMPEX ParaPort Ethernet Network Adapter has
driver support for the following software environments.

a) Novell Netware (DOS)
b) MicroSoft Lan Manager (DOS)
c) Windows For WorkGroup
d) Lantastic (DOS & WINDOWS)
e) DEC PathWork for DOS Software
f) FTP PC/TCP
g) Other Networks

[MikeRM]

I got one and spent hours on it with Mike on IRC trying to get it to work. We have all of the drivers and everything now, but I still can't quite get it to function correctly on any of my machines for some reason.