On Wed, 27 Oct 1999, Tony Duell wrote: Personal experience/preference, I suppose. I don't particularly like to work with coax cable; I hate the feeling of working with it behind a desk or somewhere I can't see very well and ending up with strands of wire embedded under my fingernails. My own ineptitude with 10Base2, I know...

Last time I was in Fry's the cheapo punchdown tools were $35, and the nice Harris tool was close to $75. Maybe that could go along with my inexpensive under $400 10/100 switch <sarcasm at 93% and rising>. Ditto I would not dream of the above, well actually I "might" dream about it, but I am sure I would wake up screaming. ;) Cheap and lazy are the two principals that guide my life, and I am reluctant to part from them. This means if I have to pull a wire through walls its going to be high grade CAT5, because in the long run that is the cheapest and laziest way to do it. My "network plan" doesn't currently include 100bt, and I would be interested in some comments about what I will be missing. My assumption as I make the leap from years of happy 230 kbps Apple LocalTalk, is that 10 Mbps ethernet will leave no great longing in my heart. I have a hodge podge of machines, and intend a network to match. 10bt between the newest hardware, although most of the NICs will be 10/100, so I could be convinced to put a layer of 100bt in, but not until I can "find" a cheap 10/100 switch (hint: it will be less than $400). The fast machines will go to a hub that is either directly or through some "firewall" Linux 486 type box to my neato cable modem and the rest of the world. From the "fast" machines hub (which will physically be located near the living room and AV stuff) I plan on linking two other hubs, one in my office, and one in my garage. Both of the secondary hubs will likely have both a 10b2 and via Shiva FastPaths a LocalTalk segment attached to them. I have a LOT of old macs (maybe 100), and while most of them will NEVER be used by me (just machines passing through my hands), more than a dozen likely will be, and coax NICs for nubus are dirt cheap, and more importantly the NICs for the machines like the LCs or SE/30s are worth more than the computers in 10bt. I really look forward to doing interesting things at the lowest end, with IIgs and old Mac Pluses hooked to the net via LocalTalk (the FastPaths will "tunnel" TCP/IP packets over LocalTalk using some standard Apple protocol even on the old Pluses). In general this will not be a "working" network, but a fun network, and a learning place to try network things. Backups, and doing installs on "fresh meat" systems is about as serious as I have in mind, with the bulk of the use for Internet access, and playing games etc. over the local network.

On Wed, 27 Oct 1999, Zane H. Healy wrote: But a small 10BaseT hub with a 10Base2 connection on it can be found for under $30.

Rub it in why don't you :^/ I wish I could remember WHY I didn't do that a year ago, I hope there was a good reason. I remember cursing the fact I couldn't get a 10/100 hub with that. Zane | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator | | healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast | | healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

I've been offered 2 castored racks by the owner of the place I am using temporarily for storage, which were abandoned by a previous occupant. They are about 5' high by 24'' wide with lockable front and rear doors. One of the rear doors had been forced open and I only got a quick glance inside. I made out a micropolis(IIRC) mfr. label on one module and a large "PDP 4800" stencil on another one which looked like a PSU. There were about 20 DB25 cables connected to one of the modules. I'm a complete novice when it comes to mini's, and due to storage space limitations plus that I would also have to remove them when I vacate my locker I've been reluctant to take them. Anyone have any idea on what they might be ? I realize this is not much info and will be looking at them again when I have a flashlight and a means of forcing open a front door panel. ciao larry

Rumor has it that Clint Wolff (VAX collector) may have mentioned these words: Cat3 handles up to 10Mbit, Cat5 handles up to 100Mbit, "Enhanced Cat5" goes up to 350Mbit, and Gigabit actually uses Enhanced Cat5, as it uses all four pairs of wires - 250Mbit per pair. I plan on building next year, I'm wiring all rooms (heck, maybe even the bathrooms... ;-) with Cat5 for 100Mbit, but I also want an ArcNet bridge to the garage, barn & chickencoop if I get it built next year... 2.5Mbit over a kilometer really isn't that bad! ;-) Cheers, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger --- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers Recycling is good, right??? Ok, so I'll recycle an old .sig. If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.

I had the advantage of building a new house and running my cable while the walls were open but if I had to do it over again, I'd pick a bigger wiring and server closet, run 8000 ft of Cat5 instead of 4000 and putt in some fiber for future use. That small closet is getting pretty cramped as well as hot with 3 Nt boxes, a Linux box and a Quadra. I hadn't realized how much heat seven 8 port hubs generate. I'm going shopping this weekend for a small exhaust fan to relieve some of the heat. I've also had to add several network jacks on the second florr to accomidate configurations that were unplanned. James -- ICQ 2286850 Home Page http://home.texoma.net/~jrice Classic Comp Page at http://home.texoma.net/~jrice/classiccomp.html Home Network Page at http://home.texoma.net/~jrice/network.html All pages under construction!