PRELIMINARY
This document contains information on a product under development at Advanced Micro Devices. The information
is intended to help you evaluate this product. AMD reserves the right to change or discontinue work on this proposed
product without notice.
Publication# 22104
Rev: A Amendment/0
Issue Date: January 1998
PCnet-
FAST
-MP-KT
Am79C971 Based Evaluation Kit for PCI Systems
DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTICS
n
Based on the 10/100 Mbps PCnet-
FAST
(Am79C971) single-chip Ethernet Controller
n
Implements a fully functional 10/100 Mbps
Ethernet node using a Peripheral Component
Interconnect (PCI)-based system
n
Ethernet adapter card utilizing a high
performance, low-cost, bus master architecture
n
Software compatible with all PCnet Family members
n
Software drivers support all popular Network
Operating Systems
n
Includes Evaluation Board, software driver
diskettes, and supporting documentation
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The PCnet-
FAST
evaluation kit is a design evaluation
vehicle for the Am79C971 PCnet-
FAST
single-chip
Ethernet controller. The kit includes an evaluation
board with the Am79C971 Ethernet controller and is
designed for 10BASE_T or 100BASE_TX media.
The evaluation board, when installed in a PCI-based host
system, provides a platform for demonstrating the high
performance of the PCnet-
FAST
device, the low manufac-
turing cost of a PCnet-
FAST
-based solution, and the over-
all ease of design. The platform further allows the user to
evaluate the network hardware and to develop software
for an Ethernet node based on the PCnet-
FAST
device.
In addition to the evaluation board, the kit comes with
software diskettes, a hardware user's manual, the
PCnet Family Network Driver Installation Guide
, device
data sheet, and the
PCnet Family Technical Manual
.
The software includes driver object codes for Novell
NetWare ODI DOS and OS/2, Microsoft Windows NT,
Window for Workgroups, LAN Manager, Banyan VINES
Client, IBM LAN Server, SCO UNIX, Artisoft LANtastic/
AI, DEC Pathworks, and Packet Driver. Also included
are two utility programs, one for configuration of the
network adapter card and software drivers installation,
and one for EEPROM configuration.
No hardware jumpers are required for configuration. The
PCI system BIOS automatically configures on power up,
the I/O Base Address, interrupt channel, and DMA chan-
nel for the PCnet-FAST-based Ethernet adapter card.
In addition, AMD provides a low-level evaluation pro-
gram to establish connections, and send and receive
messages. The evaluation program allows the user to
view and change the contents of the PCnet-FAST reg-
isters, the memory resident Initialization Block, and the
data buffer Descriptor Rings. The program also allows
the designer to establish loops for hardware probing.
The PCnet Family Configuration and Installation utility
program, Aminstall, provides an easy user interface to
view the configuration of the PCnet-FAST evaluation
board. The utility program will automatically scan the sys-
tem bus(es), which may include IDA, VL, and PCI to SA+,
PCnet-ISA II, PCnet-32, PCnet-PCI, PCnet-PCI II, and
PCnet-
FAST
devices. With the configuration portion of the
program, the utility will find and report to the user, the I/O
address, IRQ channel and DMA channel, assigned to the
PCnet-
FAST
device by the system BIOS. After configura-
tion, the user may use the installation portion of the utility
to install a selected driver by copying the appropriate
driver from the AMD diskette, and create or modify the
CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT, and PROTOCOL.INI
OR NET.CFG files on the user's system.
The PCnet-FAST evaluation board stores the unique
IEEE physical address in the serial EEPROM. Once
powered up, the Am79C971 device reads the node's
IEEE physical address from the EEPROM through the
Microwire interface protocol. For more details about the
PCnet-FAST Ethernet Controller also refer to the
Am79C971 PCnet-FAST data sheet (PID #20550C)
and the PCnet Family Technical Manual (PID #18216).
Trademarks
Copyright 1998 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved.
AMD, the AMD logo, and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
CLANCE, lan, ISAnet, LANCE, Magic Packet, and PCnet are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Product names used in this publication are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective companies.
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