The A560 is a network card which connects to the side expansion slot of the A500 and A1000. The A560 is NOT and ethernet card but uses a different networking standard called ArcNet. Arcnet was a popular networking standard during the 1980's but has been pretty much killed off by Ethernet, except for industrial and ebedded applications where it's more robust than ethernet and is effected less by EMI (ElectroMagentic Interference). It also supports longer cable lengths and larger networks than most Ethernet standards. ArcNet is a token ring (not to be confused with IBM's Token Ring) networking standard which can be arranged in a bus topology or a star topology in both Coaxial Cabling and UTP. Whilst the cabling may be very similar to Ethernet cabling, it is different electrically. ArcNet requires RG62/93 Ohm and NOT RG58/50 Ohm which ethernet uses. It is also available in a range of speeds from 150Kb/s to 10Mb/s. The A560 is capable of transferring at about 150k/sec.

Thanks to Ola Jensen and Gavin Fance