NIC/ethernet card

[aminura]

Hello!
Well, today there was a technical presentation by some students in my school so there was this discussion about NIC's. So somebody came up with a question that what's the difference between ethernet card and network interface card..! To that, the guy replied that ethernet card's different in sense that they have some better protocol and additional features as compared to NIC...
What I thought was that they were the same thing!! So is it actually different?

 

[Peddant]

Ethernet is the protocol - wiring,signaling,speed standards for a LAN.

An ethernet NIC is simply a piece of hardware that implements,and is described by,the Ethernet.

 

[Nodsu]

In theory, a NIC (Network Interface Card) can be anything, including non-ethernet networks like Token Ring, Token Bus, ATM, whatever. In our everyday use, network = ethernet of course and "ethernet card" and "NIC" mean execatly the same thing.

 

[aminura]

ok! Thanks for the replies