Subject: REVIEW: CEI A4066 Ethernet Plus network board
From: [email-masked] (Robert A. Green)
Date: 20 Jul 1995 18:21:52 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME

	CEI A4066 Ethernet Plus network board

	[MODERATOR'S NOTE:  This review was updated on 9 June 1997
	to update the reviewer's email address.  - Dan]

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

	A Zorro II/III Ethernet card supporting 10BaseT, AUI and ThinNet
connections. Includes a SANA II compliant device driver.

AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

	Name:		Creative Equipment International
	Address:	5555 W. Flagler St.
			Miami, FL  33134
			USA

	Telephone:      (305) 266-2800

LIST PRICE

	I believe the suggested retail is $300 (US).  At any rate, that seems
to be what it is going for in the mail order ads.

SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

	HARDWARE

		A Zorro II/III slot

	SOFTWARE

		Some type of networking software (after all, why install the
		card otherwise?).

COPY PROTECTION

	None.

MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

	Amiga 3000T with 25MHz 68040 CPU
	2MB Chip, 8 MB Fast RAM
	Kickstart 37.175 (2.04) Workbench 38.36 (2.1)
	AmiTCP 4.0 (demo)
	
INSTALLATION

	The card comes defaulted for use with ThinNet cabling which is what
my LAN uses, so it was simply a matter of opening the computer and
installing the card in a free Zorro slot.

GENERAL COMMENTS

	The A4066 is a pretty straightforward product in the whole scheme of
things. Let it suffice to say that out of this whole project, the Ethernet
card was the easiest thing to deal with.  Basically, I put the card in the
machine, powered up, installed the driver, and was done with it. AmiTCP
worked flawlessly with the card as soon as it was started. My Amiga is on a
TCP/IP network with an 2 MS-DOS machines, 2 Linux machines and one box that
is booting as either MS DOS or Linux depending on what it is being used for.
The Amiga has never batted an eyelash about contacting any of these machines.

	[MODERATOR'S NOTE:  For non-English speakers, "never batted an
	eyelash" means "never had a problem."  - Dan]

APPLICATIONS

	So far I have used the A4066 for only telnet and ftp, but judging by
the fact that everything so far works fine, I would estimate that this card
will work with any software that supports a SANA II network device.

	For reference, my machine is also running Parnet at the same time,
and the two get along just dandy.

	Please feel free to drop in and "check" the card operation for
yourself, as it is also supplying telnet connections for Internet access to
my BBS: telnet bbs.mxi.com.

DOCUMENTATION

	Documentation for the card is pretty sparse, consisting of a 5 page
booklet. Frankly, it doesn't need much. Getting a network card installed is
pretty straightforward. Getting the software that will use the network card
set up is a whole different story, but that's for other reviews.

LIKES

	Well, what's not to like about Ethernet? It's fast (10MB/sec data
transfers) and doesn't seem to have any effect on the machine's speed. Wish
I could say the same about AmiTCP <grin>.

DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS

	About the only thing I didn't like about the A4066 was the price,
but since it is priced about the same as the other Zorro Ethernet cards I
checked on (Hydra, Ariadne) I guess that is just the state of the market.
Sure makes me wince when I think back to the $30 I paid for essentially the
same thing for a Bmer though. Such is the price we pay to use the Amiga I
guess.

COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

	I haven't used any other Amiga Ethernet cards, but based on what I
have read, there isn't much difference between this card and the Ariadne and
Hydra cards. Here's the differences that I was able to gather though:

	A4066 has a 64K buffer, Ariadne has 32K, Hydra has ??.

	A4066 comes with only the device drivers, while the Ariadne also
comes with Envoy (an Amiga-Amiga networking package). For my purposes, Envoy
was of no use, since I am linking my A3000T to non-Amiga machines.

BUGS

	No bugs noted.

VENDOR SUPPORT

	N/A

WARRANTY

	1 year repair/replacement warranty against design, material or
	workmanship defects to the "buyer".

CONCLUSIONS

	This is a solid product that delivers exactly what is promised. I
give it a hearty recommendation to anyone needing to connect an Amiga to an
Ethernet LAN.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

	Copyright 1995 Robert A. Green ([email-masked]).
May be freely reproduced and distributed in whole or in part so long
as no text is modified and this copyright notice is included. No fee
may be charged for the reproduction/distribution of this document, nor
may it be included in any document/publication for which a fee is
charged without the prior written consent of the author.

 /\  /\   /\  /\ |/\  /\ |/\  /\  |    |          Robert A. Green
|  \/  | |  ||  ||  ||   |   |  | |    |         [email-masked]
|      |  \/  \/ |  | \/ |    \/   \/\/    BBS:808-456-8541 8-n-1 28.8K
       Web Surfing Address - http://asylum.aloha.com/~mooncrow

---

   Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews
   Send reviews to:	[email-masked]
   Request information:	[email-masked]
   Moderator mail:	[email-masked]
   Anonymous ftp site:  math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews