22 Jul
2003
22 Jul
'03
2:24 a.m.
On Tue, 22 Jul 2003 ghldbrd(a)ccp.com wrote:
I have a box full of token-ring adapters, IBM new in
the box, and can't
find a nibble here in the States. I've been told that token ring
netowrking is an IBM only system, and requies an IBM server to play.
Nah. Although
they ended up being the only ones still holding on to
it, TR was, at one point, a fairly widely-used topology, especially
in areas where network delay was an issue. 4Mbps TR was faster than
10Mbps Ethernet, when under heavy load, simply because TR avoids the
collapsing of throughput when the number of collisions goes up (on
Ethernet).
Still.. TR was expensive as hell, and cabling was same. NIC vendors
were not abundant (IBM, Madge, 3Com and Compaq come to mind) so those
were expensive, too.
But... TR was good stuff, just expensive, which eventually made it
exotic...
--f