Old stuff

10 Nov 1997

...
    ....in my
experience
with IBM network cards, if they're a round (i.e. BNC) connector, 
they're probably the old "baseband" stuff that uses lots of coax 
cable  >and a hub/amplifier, and work only with IBM PC-LAN Program 
and  >NetBEUI....the number 2Mb/sec comes
 to mind....  Are we talking about Arcnet
here?  When I think 2Mb/sec, BNC 
connector, and  8-bit bus, I think Arcnet, but there may have been  others.... If
the cards are _branded_ IBM, chances are well over 
ten to one that they are
Token Ring.  IBM never touched Arcnet, and was hesitant about 
Ethernet. --
Ward Griffiths 
 If any of those network cards ARE token-ring and have BNC connectors, I 
 would love to buy a couple. I got an old Token ring MAU several years ago 
 that has BNC ports and would like to try it out. Can't tell you how many 
 people have flat out denied that Token Ring was ever carried over coax! 
 But the existence of the MAU is proof enough that at one time it was done. 
Wow.  I must admit, I thought that token ring required too many wires 
for co-ax.  Or was the 4-wire connection replaced by coax in, coax out?

Seriously, if it's IBM and co-ax I'd guess at SNA (Systems Network 
Architecture - the famous 3270 series terminals and related devices).  
This was not a PC network architecture at all - it was a loads-of-
terminals-into-the-mainframe architecture - and the card would have come 
with terminal emulator software.

BTW, did anyone discover what the IBM System/74 was?  The description 
sounded more like a system/34 to me, and I certainly never heard of the 
74 when I worked at IBM.

Philip.

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Old stuff