Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss

Token Ring (really)

3 views
Skip to first unread message

Jay West

unread,
Apr 6, 2012, 12:31:21 PM4/6/12
to
I used to use the Token Ring driver in previous versions of FreeBSD (I think
it was the oli one I was using). I know that Token Ring support was removed
several releases ago. I again now have a somewhat pressing need for Token
Ring support on FreeBSD 9. The FreeBSD Token Ring Project seems to be
inactive from a look at the website.



Would anyone know of a PCI token ring card that perhaps the manufacturer
provides their own drivers for FreeBSD 9? All my google searches have come
up dry. Or, if any of the FreeBSD Token Ring Driver Project developers are
lurking around still, perhaps one of them would consider taking a donation
to make the old FreeBSD olicom drivers work on FreeBSD 9?





Jay West

EZwind.net

PO Box 460474

Saint Louis, MO 63146

Voice: (314) 262-4143 ext 1000

Toll Free: (866) 343-2589

Fax: (314) 558-9284

<mailto:jw...@opensourceassociates.com> jw...@ezwind.net



--------------------------------------------

This e-mail transmission may contain information that is proprietary,
privileged and/or confidential

and is intended exclusively for the person(s) to whom it is addressed. Any
use, copying, retention

or disclosure by any person other than the intended recipient or the
intended recipient's designees

is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient or their
designee, please notify the

sender immediately by return e-mail and delete all copies.



_______________________________________________
freebsd-...@freebsd.org mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org"

Jay West

unread,
Apr 6, 2012, 1:30:48 PM4/6/12
to
Well over 20 years experience with FreeBSD, and I was not aware of "Project
Evil" ;)

I don't know if my olicom card has NDIS versions of their driver for token
ring, but if so, that just might work! Still, getting the deprecated oltr
driver on FreeBSD9 would be awesome....

Jay West
EZwind.net
PO Box 460474
Saint Louis, MO 63146
Voice: (314) 262-4143 ext 1000
Toll Free: (866) 343-2589
Fax: (314) 558-9284
jw...@ezwind.net

--------------------------------------------
This e-mail transmission may contain information that is proprietary,
privileged and/or confidential
and is intended exclusively for the person(s) to whom it is addressed. Any
use, copying, retention
or disclosure by any person other than the intended recipient or the
intended recipient's designees
is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient or their
designee, please notify the
sender immediately by return e-mail and delete all copies.

mikel king

unread,
Apr 6, 2012, 3:45:43 PM4/6/12
to

On Apr 6, 2012, at 1:30 PM, Jay West wrote:

> Well over 20 years experience with FreeBSD, and I was not aware of "Project
> Evil" ;)
>
> I don't know if my olicom card has NDIS versions of their driver for token
> ring, but if so, that just might work! Still, getting the deprecated oltr
> driver on FreeBSD9 would be awesome....
>
> Jay West
> EZwind.net
> PO Box 460474
> Saint Louis, MO 63146
> Voice: (314) 262-4143 ext 1000
> Toll Free: (866) 343-2589
> Fax: (314) 558-9284
> jw...@ezwind.net
>

Jay,

What is the last version of FreeBSD that your card was supported on? Perhaps it would be worth firing up that older version. I know it's a long shot but at least you would have access to the driver code that may actually still work in the current version.

It would certainly make an interesting story if you sort it all out.

Regards,
Mikel King
BSD News Network
http://bsdnews.net
skype: mikel.king
http://twitter.com/mikelking

Jay West

unread,
Apr 6, 2012, 10:27:25 PM4/6/12
to
Well, found the XP drivers for the card (it's a Madge Smart MK4 PCI adapter,
not olicom as I thought).

Ndisgen seemed to work fine

After kldloading the resulting module, ifconfig shows:
ndis0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
ether 00:00:00:ee:ed:c6
media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX)
status: no carrier

It is connected though (via DB9, not RJ45). I don't see how you can specify
4mbps or 16mbps, attempting the oltr media types for example "UTP/4mbps"
says no such media type.

I am wondering if the ndisgen utility is only designed for ndis Ethernet
cards instead of my case - ndis token ring. :(


Jay West
EZwind.net
PO Box 460474
Saint Louis, MO 63146
Voice: (314) 262-4143 ext 1000
Toll Free: (866) 343-2589
Fax: (314) 558-9284
jw...@ezwind.net

--------------------------------------------
This e-mail transmission may contain information that is proprietary,
privileged and/or confidential
and is intended exclusively for the person(s) to whom it is addressed. Any
use, copying, retention
or disclosure by any person other than the intended recipient or the
intended recipient's designees
is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient or their
designee, please notify the
sender immediately by return e-mail and delete all copies.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-freeb...@freebsd.org

Adam Vande More

unread,
Apr 6, 2012, 11:16:32 PM4/6/12
to
On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 9:27 PM, Jay West <jw...@ezwind.net> wrote:

> Well, found the XP drivers for the card (it's a Madge Smart MK4 PCI
> adapter,
> not olicom as I thought).
>
> Ndisgen seemed to work fine
>
> After kldloading the resulting module, ifconfig shows:
> ndis0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
> ether 00:00:00:ee:ed:c6
> media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX)
> status: no carrier
>
> It is connected though (via DB9, not RJ45). I don't see how you can specify
> 4mbps or 16mbps, attempting the oltr media types for example "UTP/4mbps"
> says no such media type.
>
> I am wondering if the ndisgen utility is only designed for ndis Ethernet
> cards instead of my case - ndis token ring. :(
>

It is still in the 7.x branch:
http://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/stable/7/sys/contrib/dev/oltr/

Otherwise, it's time to abandon steamships for airplanes. Sounds like you
have a primed business opportunity just waiting to be exploited.

--
Adam Vande More

Jay West

unread,
Apr 8, 2012, 10:41:17 AM4/8/12
to
Adam wrote...

Otherwise, it's time to abandon steamships for airplanes. Sounds like you
have a primed business opportunity just waiting to be exploited.

-----------
Actually, this is for a historical re-creation project. Airplanes would be
entirely inappropriate for a historical display, so steamships it is. Last I
checked, there was no primed business opportunity in doing something for
non-profits (museums, etc.) :)

I guess I'll have to see how tough it would be to yank the TR code from 7x
and get it running under 9x. Probably above my skillset, but I'll have a
looksee.

J

Nikos Vassiliadis

unread,
Apr 8, 2012, 7:03:48 PM4/8/12
to
On 4/8/2012 4:41 PM, Jay West wrote:
> Adam wrote...
>
> Otherwise, it's time to abandon steamships for airplanes. Sounds like you
> have a primed business opportunity just waiting to be exploited.
>
> -----------
> Actually, this is for a historical re-creation project. Airplanes would be
> entirely inappropriate for a historical display, so steamships it is. Last I
> checked, there was no primed business opportunity in doing something for
> non-profits (museums, etc.) :)
>
> I guess I'll have to see how tough it would be to yank the TR code from 7x
> and get it running under 9x. Probably above my skillset, but I'll have a
> looksee.
>
> J
>

Hi,

You could try finding an "ethernet to token ring" translating bridge,
though I am not aware of the budget will need - or if you'll find one
anyways.

Just a thought,

Nikos

per...@pluto.rain.com

unread,
Apr 9, 2012, 10:04:27 AM4/9/12
to
"Jay West" <jw...@ezwind.net> wrote:

> this is for a historical re-creation project ...
>
> I guess I'll have to see how tough it would be to yank
> the TR code from 7x and get it running under 9x.

Might it not be both more historically accurate, and a great deal
easier, to just use the version of FreeBSD that corresponds to the
historical era being re-created?

Robert Huff

unread,
Apr 9, 2012, 7:54:31 AM4/9/12
to

per...@pluto.rain.com writes:

> Might it not be both more historically accurate, and a great deal
> easier, to just use the version of FreeBSD that corresponds to
> the historical era being re-created?

And skip feature, performance, and security improvements made
since?



Robert Huff

Bill Tillman

unread,
Apr 11, 2012, 10:33:05 AM4/11/12
to

________________________________
From: Nikos Vassiliadis <nv...@gmx.com>
To: Jay West <jw...@ezwind.net>
Cc: 'Adam Vande More' <amvan...@gmail.com>; 'mikel king' <mikel...@olivent.com>; freebsd-...@freebsd.org
Sent: Sunday, April 8, 2012 7:03 PM


Subject: Re: Token Ring (really)

On 4/8/2012 4:41 PM, Jay West wrote:
> Adam wrote...
>
> Otherwise, it's time to abandon steamships for airplanes.  Sounds like you
> have a primed business opportunity just waiting to be exploited.
>
> -----------
> Actually, this is for a historical re-creation project. Airplanes would be
> entirely inappropriate for a historical display, so steamships it is. Last I
> checked, there was no primed business opportunity in doing something for
> non-profits (museums, etc.) :)
>

> I guess I'll have to see how tough it would be to yank the TR code from 7x

> and get it running under 9x. Probably above my skillset, but I'll have a
> looksee.
>
> J
>

Hi,

You could try finding an "ethernet to token ring" translating bridge,
though I am not aware of the budget will need - or if you'll find one
anyways.

Just a thought,

Nikos


_______________________________________________
freebsd-...@freebsd.org mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org"


Sorry to jump in on this one so late but here is my 2 cents on this one:

Madge cards were all the rage back in 1996 thru 1999. I was IT Mgr for a
financial services company which ran token ring....ring in-ring out and pass
the MAU-e-wau-e pipe please. Back then, Madge cards ran $300 or more.
These days you can buy a 1000mbs ethernet card for $5. So I vote for
swapping out the NIC and get on with life.

Jay West

unread,
Apr 11, 2012, 11:22:42 AM4/11/12
to
There's some reasons that approach doesn't work, per IBM's protocol.

Jay West
EZwind.net
PO Box 460474
Saint Louis, MO 63146
Voice: (314) 262-4143 ext 1000
Toll Free: (866) 343-2589
Fax: (314) 558-9284
jw...@ezwind.net

--------------------------------------------
This e-mail transmission may contain information that is proprietary,
privileged and/or confidential
and is intended exclusively for the person(s) to whom it is addressed. Any
use, copying, retention
or disclosure by any person other than the intended recipient or the
intended recipient's designees
is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient or their
designee, please notify the
sender immediately by return e-mail and delete all copies.


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-freeb...@freebsd.org
0 new messages