AsantéFast 10/100 NuBus network card

[V.Yakob]

Hi, folks!

Recently I was lucky to get a network card with a 10/100 Mbps AsantéFast applink.
The card is new, as far as I can tell, the card, driver and additional software were sealed in packages and there is no trace that they tried to open it.

I installed it in Quadra 950 to check how the network works -- surprisingly fast when compared to the built-in network card that I use through the adapter.

But that's the question. If there is any way to check the bandwidth of the network so that real numbers are visible, not my feelings when copying even large files. Any ideas?
I usually use iperf for modern systems, but I don't know what might be needed on Mac OS 8.1.

I took a few photos to leave the information about the card here.

 

[PL212]

I have this card as well, and to be honest, can't really see a speed difference in either my 660av or 8100/110. But I've been meaning to do more scientific testing. I suspect using Netatalk and monitoring throughput on the linux side would be one solution.

You also have to decide how far you're willing to diverge from the experience most Mac users would have had in 1995. Would you install CopyDoubler? NetDoubler? Would you push the OS all the way to something a bit anachronistic (as in too new) to get the benefits of a modern network stack?

For me, Quadra and early PPC computing is mostly about AFP, and it seems a lot of parts of that particular code path are not optimized for 100Mbps...

 

[V.Yakob]

That's why I want to do a test and see the numbers. Sometimes our own feelings are deceptive, there is a risk of placebo.
Previously, I conducted tests with Quadra 950 when I connected BlueSCSI to the NuBus SCSI card, I got ~8.5 MB/s for reading and ~7 MB/s for writing, so on a 100 Mbps card you can probably get about similar results or not much less.
Maybe I'll start with Fetch, because it shows the data transfer speed, I'll try to send and download a 100 Mb file using the built-in network card, then Asante.
The second step is to do the same in Power Macintosh 8100.

 

[Fizzbinn]

Newer Tech included a network/speed testing utility with their drivers that might be of interest. "Performance" v1.3 is included with the Newer Tech EtherTech 1.5 installer (https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/ethertech-15-driver). It's vaguely iperf like.

I did some 10Mbps vs. 100Mbps Ethenet PCI card performance testing using it a while back.

 

[trag]

I have this card as well, and to be honest, can't really see a speed difference in either my 660av or 8100/110.
snip
Would you install CopyDoubler? NetDoubler?

On any of the X100 family, I strongly recommend installing Connectix's Speed Doubler. Apple had not made the 68K interpreter caching at that point and Speed Doubler delivers a very substantial improvement in performance.

 

[Fizzbinn]

Speaking of software leading to performance improvement. I saw this recently and would like to explore/benchmark at some point:

Jim Luther (@[email protected])

I noticed the retro Mac community was working on #GlobalTalk and although I'm not working on anything, I thought I'd contribute this suggestion: If you're using AppleShare on Mac OS 7.6 or later, you might want to use the AppleShare client extension that shipped with Mac OS 9.2.2. That's...

techhub.social

Comments from the Apple developer that made the last updates to the classic Mac OS AppleShare client extension that shipped with Mac OS 9.2.2 (AppleShare version 3.9.2) that he thinks should work with Mac OS 7.6 or later. Very Interesting read.

 

[V.Yakob]

I did some testing.
The server was Power Mac G4 QuickSilver with an shared directory and a 10 MB "dummy" file

Quadra 950 and built-in network card
Quadra 950 and built-in network card + PPC CPU Upgrade 66 Mhz
Quadra 950 and Asante
Quadra 950 and Asante + PPC CPU Upgrade 66 Mhz

Power Macintosh 8100 and built-in network card
Power Macintosh 8100 and built-in network card + NewerTech G3 300 Mhz
Power Macintosh 8100 and Asante
Power Macintosh 8100 and Asante + NewerTech G3 300 Mhz

To say that I'm surprised is to say nothing. Previously, I was sure that an external network card always gives an increase in performance.

It turns out that the 10/100 statements were marketing. Probably the real benefit of this network card is that thanks to the support of 100 Mbps uplink, it is guaranteed to connect to modern network equipment.

I have another network card that doesn't seem to work with my old router, which is now used as a switch.

 

[NJRoadfan]

The classic MacOS networking stack wasn't exactly built for maximum I/O speed. Nubus wasn't particularly fast either.