I've got an ethernet card in my Color Classic. It works just fine. I just wanted to use it as a way to get an older mac that can't share over TCP/IP to my iMac and then to my iPhone.

Looks like what you reported on involves older macs that are still able to run Open Transport (example the SE/30). The Macs I want to get working have the 68000 processor, and cannot run OT. They have to use AppleTalk only, (Not AppleTalk over IP) with the classic networking.