Rainbow Ethernet?

[AndrewZ]

I acquired a Rainbow last weekend. It will be primarily used to swap floppies with a DEC Pro 350. Are there any ethernet cards that can use used with a Rainbow?

 

[VERAULT]

Possibly a parallel port one would work while running an MS-DOS environment. I have a Kingston parallel Ethernet device myself.

 

[tradde]

Which model? 100A, 100B, or 100+? I do not know of any network cards that fit a Rainbow. Would love to be proven wrong.

 

[krebizfan]

Univation had a UnINet Ethernet card for the Rainbow. https://archive.org/stream/bitsavers_MiniMicroS_167636557/198410_djvu.txt has one of the few online mentions. Okay, Wikipedia mentions it too but one can't trust the wiki.

 

[tradde]

Did not know that. Good luck on finding one. I am still looking for the network card for a Pro-350.

 

[NeXT]

Possibly a parallel port one would work while running an MS-DOS environment. I have a Kingston parallel Ethernet device myself.

I could of sworn the Rainbow only has serial ports.

 

[VERAULT]

The sad thing is I have a stack of two of them apart on my office floor. I should know this.. But I dont. I thought it had parallel.

Edit: Says "Comm" "printer" and "video" The printer port sure looks like parallel.

 

[NeXT]

Well that answers the question for both of us.

Edited: or not....

 

[eestes3]

The Rainbow printer port is serial.

 

[VERAULT]

Then why label it "printer" and not Serial and why make it DB25 Female?... and how would that be different from the Comm port?

 

[eestes3]

It is to connect to Dec printers like the LA 50 which have serial input. Below is from the Rainbow 100 technical manual.

 

[VERAULT]

Well thanks for clearing that up..

@AndrewZ Sorry all hope is lost!

 

[NeXT]

Huh...
Well I'm not aware of any ethernet adapters that work over a serial port (or at least ones that are currently in production). I think by that point everyone just opted for the WiFi232 and its many clones, but that's not an mTCP-compatible device.

 

[VERAULT]

With all these people making new adapters for the Nabu PC (which for the life of me I cannot understand why,, Its a dead on arrival computer.. but hey to each their own) It would be nice if someone used that kind of effort on these machines which WERE used in great numbers and gave them some much needed upgrades.

 

[krebizfan]

Decnet was more common for the Rainbow and there were some methods of transferring Decnet over to Ethernet. A solution may already exist.

I would not describe the Rainbow as used in great numbers.

 

[VERAULT]

Greater numbers than the nabu. Its not like there were few and far between. They sold alot of them.

 

[ftcnet]

ethernet adapters that work over a serial port

Probably not quite what you're looking for, but there does seem to be quite a variety of devices that are described as 'serial ethernet adapter'. No doubt they would require some clever software to accomplish what you desire.

 

[VERAULT]

how does this work exactly? https://www.amazon.com/Serial-Ether...ocphy=9003402&hvtargid=pla-1467361017029&th=1

 

[djg]

how does this work exactly? https://www.amazon.com/Serial-Ether...ocphy=9003402&hvtargid=pla-1467361017029&th=1

I think these are 9 pin to RJ-45 adapters to allow Cat # cable to be used to connect them to extend the serial link. No Ethernet is involved. See the question & answer. Ad copy is horrible.

 

[AK6DN]

I think these are 9 pin to RJ-45 adapters to allow Cat # cable to be used to connect them to extend the serial link. No Ethernet is involved. See the question & answer. Ad copy is horrible.

Yup. There are serial to ethernet adapters like this: https://www.amazon.com/USR-TCP232-3...prefix=ethernet+serial,electronics,172&sr=1-8
that are basically mini telnet servers.