22 Nov
2000
22 Nov
'00
12:50 p.m.
.From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
.
> I've only found one place where it's a
problem so far, with an NE2000
card
> in a slow XT compatible the data rate (even at 10
Mbps) was too high
for it
DMA, a must and a lot of packet buffers (ramdisk).
I would be suprised if a PDP11 or PERQ or D-machine
or... would manage
anything close to 100Mbps. In fact I know it won't.
PDP-11 (q or unibus) will not. 100mb/S rate needs a minimum of
12.5mb second sustained transfer and burst rates slightly higher.
None of the ISA-8/16 bit systems can.
Of course another issue is that some of these machines
have built-in
ethernet interfaces (PERQs do, for example), and there's no way of
adding
a 100Mbps card to them.
Fortunately 10mb/s is still around for a while.
> Hubs and switches are getting cheap and small. An
8 port switch is
about the
What's the cost got to do with finding space for it, finding power for
it, or maintaining it?
It's wall wart powered but software maintenance for them can be a pain.
Not much bigger than a unmanaged hub. There is little value in switches
until you get more than 4-5 systems that want to carry intense
conversations
concurrently.
> AUI tranciever in a junk bin, but I've never
seen 10BaseT-coax
converter
the net at work uses a few of them, those are just baluns. Also the
10bt to AUIs are handy for boosting signal. They seem better at taking
a noisy 10bt and pumping it on the backbone (thinnet) than a simple
unmanaged hub.
Got a load of assorted transceivers for 10 p each
recently (about 15
cents to you...).
They can be found cheap, used.
Allison