Technology Options

n Adapter slot
Industry Standard Architecture (ISA): The ISA bus, originally used in the IBM PC, was designed to transfer 8 Mbps. This was done using eight-bit paths, which worked well in the 8086 and 8088 CPUs, which could only handle eight bits at once. Once the 80286 was released, there was a need for 16-bit cards.

Peripheral Component Interface (PCI): The PCI bus runs up to 33 MHz and can transfer 32 bits at a time. It was originally developed to help speed up graphics applications on more recent computers. Most PCI cards are software configurable and usually support the plug and play standard for automatic configuration. PCI slots are not backward compatible with any other type.

PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association): The PCMCIA v1.0 standard defines specifications for memory cards. Later, when other types of devices were required, v2.0 of the standard was established. This allowed the use of other devices such as modems, disk drives and network cards.

n Cable connectors
BNC Connector: The BNC connector is a small, round cylinder with two small prongs on the outside that allows a connector to be attached to it. A small hole for a copper wire to go into is inside the connector. The T connector is used to connect the network adapter to the two pieces of coaxial cable.

RJ-45 Connector: The RJ-45 connector looks much like a normal telephone cable connector, but larger. It uses twisted-pair cabling with four pairs of wires. A normal telephone jack uses a RJ-11 connector, which is a twisted pair with two pairs of wires.

n Speed of Network: The speed of the network depends on the Ethernet standard. The few common Ethernet standards are:

Ethernet: Ethernet is the first and least expensive high-speed LAN technology. The Ethernet adapters transmit and receive data at speeds of 10 Mbps through up to 300 feet of telephone wire to a hub or a switching device.

Fast Ethernet: Second in the series of Ethernet, fast Ethernet adapters run a network at speeds of 100 Mbps as compared to 10 Mbps of Ethernet. This LAN technology is more expensive than Ethernet.

Gigabit Ethernet: There are two gigabit Ethernet standards that describe Ethernet systems operating at a speed of 1000 Mbps. The 802.3z standard describes the specifications for the 1000 BASE-X gigabit Ethernet system for networks based on fiber optic and the 802.3ab standard, which describes the specifications for the 1000 BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet system for twisted pair networks. Though both Intel and 3Com are active in the gigabit Ethernet NIC segment, the market has not taken off as expected.