Subject: REVIEW: QuickNet 2000 ethernet hardware/software
From: [email-masked] (Alan Berney)
Date: 28 Jul 1994 13:35:25 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME

	QuickNet 2000

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

	QuickNet 2000 is an Ethernet board with peer-to-peer networking
software.  The board is a Zorro II card.  Non-Zorro versions are planned.

AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

	Name:		Resource Management Force Pty Ltd
	Address:	70-74 May Street
			St-Peters NSW 2044
			Australia

	Telephone:	+61 2 556 1316
	FAX:		+61 2 556 1524

	E-mail:		[email-masked]

LIST PRICE

	$299 (US)

SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

	HARDWARE

		An Amiga with a Zorro II card slot.

		Resource Management Force is getting a new board ready for
		the Amiga 500, Amiga 1200 and CD32.  All these should be
		available shortly.

	SOFTWARE

		AmigaDOS 1.3 or greater is required.
		AmigaDOS 2.04 is recommended.

		AmigaDOS 2.04 is needed to use Envoy.

COPY PROTECTION

	None.

MACHINES USED FOR TESTING

	Amiga 3000, KickStart 40.62 WorkBench 40.35, 10MB RAM.
	(Workbench for Registered Developer.)

	Amiga 2000, KickStart 37.?? WorkBench 2.04, 5 MB RAM.
	Accelerator board.

INSTALLATION

	An Installer script is provided.  The installation itself is rather
easy.  I found it a bit difficult to set up of the network itself, as I had
never done it before.

CONNECTORS

	There are two connectors on the back of the board: one AUI connector
(for so-called "thick-wire ethernet"), and one BNC connector for thin-wire
ethernet.  You also may order a 10BASE-T (RJ45) version which replaces the
BNC connector.

QUICKNET SOFTWARE - THE EPROM

	There is an EPROM on the QuickNet board which contains both a SANA-II
compatible device and the QuickNet networking software. You may choose one or
the other by simply changing a switch on the back of the board.

QUICKNET SOFTWARE - THE MASTER SIDE...

	In addition to the software in the EPROM, there is a special
software to be installed on the "master-server", which is the machine that
is likely to be rebooted the least.  You need to install the software only
on this machine. The disk-sharing process for all "slave" machines is
done completely from here.  Each board has its own "physical" address which
is used to recognize the board on the network.

	Once the "master-server" is completely installed, all the "slave"
machines will display a requester when they boot, containing a "username"
and a "password" field.  Then, the remote machine may use any of the shared
disks on the network just as if the disk were in the remote machine itself.
The device recognises the ".backdrop" icons of the WorkBench 2.x and all the
snapshots made. The network is completely transparent to the user!

	For each user, you may set up different access levels, different
configurations, and different shared disks.  You should do this only on the
"server" machine.  If you need to add a machine, you need to change only
the configuration of the "master-server" to add the address of the new board
in the list.

	On some diskless machines, you may boot remotely from another machine
on the network. This is VERY useful to save money!  No hard disk is
required on the slave!!

AREXX PORT

	QuickNet has an ARexx port. It allows you to send ARexx scripts on
other machines in the network! You may, for example, pilot a slideshow on all
machines of the network from a single machine.  You could also use it in
schools so the teacher may run tutorial software on the students'
machines, etc....

SANA-II DEVICE - WITH ENVOY

	Yes, there is also a SANA-II device. I tested it with Envoy (not
included in the package) which is another networking software package done by
Commodore. Envoy works only on Workbench 2.0 and higher.

	The purpose of this review is to test QuickNet, not to test Envoy!
I'll not talk a lot about this software, except that it works fine with
QuickNet, is a bit easier to install, but is not fully transparent to the
user.  Envoy is a LOT slower than QuickNet, but the about the same speed of
any other Ethernet board....

SANA-II DEVICE - WITH AMITCP/NetNFS

	Here again, I'm not going to test AmiTCP nor NetNFS in this review,
but I want to point out a few things:

	I was able to set up an NFS network with a PC compatible, running a
NFS master software (on OS/2). AND IT WORKED FINE!!

	Actually there is no Master-NFS available for the Amiga computer.
On the other side, you HAVE to have a multitasking machine or a dedicated
singletasking machine to run the master-NFS software (that's why I used OS/2
which allows multitasking).

	The installation of AmiTCP and NetNFS was a lot harder than that of
QuickNet of Envoy, and of course I had to install NFS software on the PC
compatible. The speed is also "as slow" as Envoy, just like any other
Ethernet board.

DOCUMENTATION

	QuickNet comes with printed documentation.  The documentation is
written for beginners, but there still are a few points that are not well
explained (or not at all).  But overall, I was able to figure everything out
myself.

LIKES

	- ARexx Port !!!
	- I only had to set up one machine.
	- I was able to boot with diskless machines.
	- The QuickNet networking software is REALLY fast!!!
	- I was able to set up a network even with other brands of computers.

DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS

	- The manual could be more complete.
	- QuickNet doesn't detect the addresses of the boards by itself.
	  You have to enter them manually.

COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

	The strong point of the QuickNet software is its SPEED. It is
significantly faster than any other board I tested.  Besides, very few boards
have the "boot on another computer" feature.  And NONE have that very useful
ARexx port!!

BUGS

	None seen... a few were corrected in a ROM update.

WARRANTY

	1 year.

CONCLUSIONS

	This is a very good Ethernet board.  It is fast, reliable, completely
transparent to the user when using the QuickNet software, and perfectly
usable in other networks with other machines than Amigas with its SANA-II
compatible device.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

	Copyright 1994 Alan Berney.  All rights reserved.
 
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