30 Apr
2006
30 Apr
'06
10:24 p.m.
Dennis Boone wrote:
Bell did indeed invent the rack, as far as I know from my telco
friends. And some telecom gear used or uses the wider format.
In fact, some computer industry racks have both sizes of mount in
them; look at the Dell racks, for example.
Telcos tend to view racks as flat devices, and gear going into them
is fairly shallow. If it's big, it's big up-and-down
I currently work for a big datacom supplier, and design a lot of rack
mount equipment. The current major datacom/telecom customers invariably
want all equipment to fit in standard 19" two or four post racks. They
really don't like the 23" width (not 24" width) at all, and really balk
at buying a chassis that requires a 23" rack.
More interesting is the concept of 'U' when it comes to racks. All
equipment is in units of 'U' (a standard 8' rack is 44U), which is
1.75". So anyone know where 'U' came from, and why it is called 'U'?
AK6DN
Just dawned on me that the fundamental shape (width)
of all my
industrial computing is based on the 19" rack, from the earliest to
the latest piece of equipment, but who originated the 19" rack? AT&T?
Good question! I'm a little curious about that too. I also remember
(very vaguely) seeing some 24" rack panels and such in some catalog,
ages ago, but I don't recall ever running into any hardware that
used it.