duh.
 
So I take another stab at my Centris with two NIC's to get it working as a
NAT box for our DSL line. I connect the ethernet cable from the second NIC
into the hub and notice something....the link indicator light on the hub
did not blink on.
 
hmmm
 
So I go to Asante's web site and get info on the card, a MacCon Nubus enet
card. Asante sez the card is old and not really supported so much and
therefore has some autoconfiguration problems. To get around this problem,
they say, you must tell the switch to disable autoconfiguration. 
 
So I do that, and it works. 

thanks for everyone's help :) I'm learning more about NAT and ethernet
than I ever really cared to know :D

Chris
http://www.cyberport.net/users/nikon/