On Feb 9, 8:20, Robert Schaefer wrote: FOIRL (it's not called 10baseFOIRL) is Fibre Optic Inter-Repeater Link, and as the name implies was originally used to links hubs (repeaters) or bridges. One of it's chief advantages was length, FOIRL lines can be up to 1km, whereas 10base2 is limited to 185m and 10base5 to 500m. The transceivers (with AUI connectors) came a little later, and can also be used on individual machines, of course, though they're not strictly part of the standard. 10baseFL is the successor, same speed, completely backwards compatible, but enhanced range (2km). There are two other 10baseF standards. 10baseFB is for backbones, and allows more than the usual number of repeaters. It uses different signaling protocols, isn't compatible with anything else, and I've never seen any, so I assume it wasn't common. 10baseFP is mentioned in the standard as a passive method of interconnecting computers without repeaters (hubs) but I never even heard of anyone implementing it. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York