For me, as an SME user, I started using Ethernet when Dlink introduced an ISA card [DE205] which had a 4-port hub built in (actually 5-port if you counted the internal one), at not a great deal more than a normal 10Base-T card. I think it was about $250, when a typical desktop PC was $2500.
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Price was a major feature, but interoperability and backwards compatibility were the tipping points.
Ah, yes, backwards compatibility: implementing the fantastic feature of breaking the network... we all remember the fun of what happened when someone incorrectly unhooked a 10base2 network segment; D-Link managed to one-up that on the theoretically more-robust 10baseT/UTP by introducing a card that'd break your network when you powered off the attached PC. Designer of that deserved to be whipped with some RG-58. :-) ... JG -- Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net "We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.