https://dfarq.homeip.net/what-happened-to-3com/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-happened-to-3com David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more Tue, 09 Dec 2025 03:56:18 +0000 hourly 1 https://dfarq.homeip.net/what-happened-to-3com/#comment-57379 Tue, 09 Dec 2025 03:56:18 +0000 https://dfarq.homeip.net/?p=28383#comment-57379 The best network card in the 90’s wasn’t 3Com or Intel… It was DEC’s Tulip chipset. Able to have multiple MAC addresses simultaneously, it was the go-to for those who needed to run VRRP and other network HA methods. The chipset licensed to 3rd parties, in particular I remember buying a ton of Linksys LNE100TX cards based on it, which were rock solid. I see plenty on ebay.

]]> https://dfarq.homeip.net/what-happened-to-3com/#comment-57340 Wed, 12 Nov 2025 12:41:02 +0000 https://dfarq.homeip.net/?p=28383#comment-57340 The 3C509 is something I remember, we swapped from WD cards to 3Com when they became a ‘thing’. I also remember visiting their place at Bayfront in the valley a few times, as ultimately Apricot repackaged 3C cards, quite openly as, echoing what you say, people like a one-stop-shop.
The other nail in the coffin was the invention by Microsoft of the Network Device Interface Specification (NDIS) which meant that any network stack could talk to any card as long as they had a working NDIS driver. This removed the stickiness of finely tuned stack software, which previously had entirely proprietary interfaces. The final nail was the incorporation of ethernet silicon in the main processor silicon, all you needed then was a physical circuit and job done.

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