I need a PCI ethernet card driver for my Performa 6360...

Question

Roughly a week ago, I decided to add yet another one of my classic Macs to my LAN, a classic gaming LAN of sorts, with that mac being a Performa 6360. With it's single empty (at the time) PCI slot, the solution for an ethernet card for the system was basically screaming at me. Unfortunately, I went to my local electronics store with the assumption that PCI ethernet cards are fairly generic devices that should work in nearly everything without a problem. That turned out not to be the case. Once I finally aquired the time to install it, the card itself appeared to work, with the outer LEDs indicating network activity and a 100mbps network speed, however, when I went into the Appletalk or TCP/IP control panels, I came to the terrible realization that I needed a driver. The included CD was, much to my dismay, Windows only, Google searches haven't been much help, and worst of all, I seem to have misplaced my reciept. The "card" I keep mentioning is a Linksys LNE100TX version 5.1. Here is what is shown in the apple system profiler:
==============================
PCI Slot
Card type: ethernet
Card name: pci1317,574
Card model: -1
Card Rom #: Not available
Card Revision: 17
Card Vendor ID: 1317
==============================
What I am wondering is where I could find a driver for this card, and if that answer is "nowhere", is there any way I could get this card functioning under Mac OS 8.1? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

Niteshooter wrote:
Well the good news is there was one,
http://www.welovemacs.com/net-cs2-fe.html
finding one, is a good question. Oddly enough the link you posted to the 10T version is the same company as above.
Yes, I have tried searching a number of places for it, and haven't come up with much. Here is what a google shopping search pulled up (eBay came up empty), the first being "unavailable" for purchase once you add it to your shopping cart and the second costing only $150! I could easily buy a new (used) mac with the card installed in it for that much!
As for the PCI slot cards you are trying, keep in mind that you are trying to use current cards which didn't exist back in the day your Mac and OS were made...... I have Asante 10/100 PCI cards in some of that generation mac and they work fine but then they were supported by the OS.
Good point. Even back when I purchased it, the card seemed a bit of a long-shot to me, too. However, being on sale for $15, I thought, "why not at least try?". Unfortunately, I came up with the results above. However, you have given me a good idea. I realize from reading a few posts around here on the issue that it is a good idea to keep the pci slot of the computer open on this computer until there is a need to upgrade, let's say, for a graphics card. However, what if I have no future plans to add anything (as is currently)? Is it really that necessary that I keep the slot open? I'm sure it would be exponentially easier to find a card for that.
A long shot might be to try loading OS 9.0.4 and see if you get lucky as 8 is pretty old plus there's a part of me that wonders with such a slow bus and cpu that 100T is going to make a big difference.
Kevin
Thank you for the suggestion, but that's how I collected the information for the card in the first place. The Performa 6360 didn't seem to take the card, so I popped it in to my Beige G3 running Mac OS 9.2.2 and hoped it might work on that. Same problem, however, the Apple System Profiler is much more thorough on that OS, so I was able to acquire the card's information. The reason for the 100-BaseT Ethernet, again, is not solely based on that one computer; It's the fact that I would prefer the network to run at the faster speed and with four macs currently on it, with a few more modern ones such as the iBook G3 shown below, the speed is a nice thing to have.
So, on that note, any suggestions for a PCI equivalent? Has Apple ever made any? If so, where could I find them at a reasonable (Read: Not $150) price?
Thanks again.