Cheap, good tulips...

[Robert G. Brown]

Dear list persons,

A short while ago there was considerable discussion on the list
concerning a source of cheap "generic" NICs with genuine DEC 21140's in
them and with a minimum of wrapper crap (of the sort that drives Don
nuts adding minipatches to the driver).

This note is just to report that I've had zero problems with the Wise
Com tulip NIC.  It has a genuine 21140, is recognized and configured by
any of the recent tulip drivers, works fine with 2.0.36 and 2.1.131 (I'm
running both locally), and retails via Intrex for $29.99.

Finding Wise on the net has proven difficult, so I don't know how to
tell you to find a local source (Intrex is a North Carolina hardware
company and not, AFAIK, a mail order house), but I'm thinking of buying
a few of these NICs to just keep around.  I have not been too pleased
with lite-on "tulips", so its good news that there do exist very generic
tulip NICs out there at a very reasonable price; if you look for them
you can find them.

BTW, this is NOT spam, just a limited FYI/endorsement.  I don't work for
Wise (or Digital or Intel) but since Kingston and other "generic" tulip
sources started switching chipsets I've been scrabbling looking for
cheap sources myself and just wanted to share one small victory.
Obviously, YMMV.

   rgb

Robert G. Brown	                       http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
Phone: 1-919-660-2567  Fax: 919-660-2525     email:rgb@phy.duke.edu