Due to the popular design of some cards, different companies will make `clones' or replicas of the original card. However, one must be careful, as some of these clones are not 100 % compatible, and can be troublesome. Some common problems with `not-quite-clones' are noted in the FAQ section .
This section used to have a listing of a whole bunch of clones that were reported to work, but seeing as nearly all clones will work, it makes more sense to list the ones that don't work 100 % .
Here is a list of some of the NE-2000 clones that are known to
have various problems. Most of them aren't fatal. In the case
of the ones listed as `bad clones' -- this usually indicates that
the cards don't have the two NE2000 identifier bytes. NEx000-clones
have a Station Address PROM (SAPROM) in the packet buffer memory space.
NE2000 clones have 0x57,0x57 in bytes 0x0e,0x0f
of the SAPROM, while
other supposed NE2000 clones must be detected by their SA prefix.
Accton NE2000 -- might not get detected at boot, see ne2000 problems .
Aritsoft LANtastic AE-2 -- OK, but has flawed error-reporting registers.
AT-LAN-TEC NE2000 -- clone uses Winbond chip that traps SCSI drivers
ShineNet LCS-8634 -- clone uses Winbond chip that traps SCSI drivers
Cabletron E10**, E20**, E10**-x, E20**-x -- bad clones, but the driver checks for them. See E10** .
D-Link Ethernet II -- bad clones, but the driver checks for them. See DE-100 / DE-200 .
DFI DFINET-300, DFINET-400 -- bad clones, but the driver checks for them. See DFI-300 / DFI-400
I haven't heard of any bad clones of these cards, except perhaps for some chamelion-type cards that can be set to look like a ne2000 card or a wd8013 card. There is really no need to purchase one of these `double-identity' cards anyway.
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