12 Jul
2005
12 Jul
'05
9:16 p.m.
Bob said:
"I've got scads of Apollo hardware and documentation.
Most of it needs a new home, but there has been little interest so far."
Well, I'm interested. Just the logistics of getting it across the
country.
13 Jul
13 Jul
7:21 a.m.
On Tue, 2005-07-12 at 18:16 -0700, Al Kossow wrote:
Bob said:
"I've got scads of Apollo hardware and documentation.
Most of it needs a new home, but there has been little interest so far."
Well, I'm interested. Just the logistics of getting it across the
country.
A list of what there is would be nice to see - probably too expensive to
ship it across the pond though.
Question for Apollo fans - when setting up an Apollo token ring, is it
really as simple as just chaining the machines together in a loop? I
seem to remember the manuals (the few that we do have) mentioning
plugging in to wall-mounted boxes, but it's not clear if those are just
for cable routing or whether they actually do something more important.
We're still short a Domain keyboard here, and I think we only have one
of the little interface cables that connects the network cabling to the
token ring card itself - hopefully there's nothing special to those
though and we can make something up. I'd just like to know if it's vital
to find the wall boxes though! :-)
cheers
Jules
7:37 a.m.
All,
On 7/13/05, Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
On Tue, 2005-07-12 at 18:16 -0700, Al Kossow wrote:
A list of what there is would be nice to see - probably too expensive to
ship it across the pond though.
Question for Apollo fans - when setting up an Apollo token ring, is it
really as simple as just chaining the machines together in a loop? I
seem to remember the manuals (the few that we do have) mentioning
plugging in to wall-mounted boxes, but it's not clear if those are just
for cable routing or whether they actually do something more important.
The wall boxes are just fancy make before break connection boxes. The
ring works fine without them.
We're still short a Domain keyboard here, and I
think we only have one
of the little interface cables that connects the network cabling to the
token ring card itself - hopefully there's nothing special to those
though and we can make something up. I'd just like to know if it's vital
to find the wall boxes though! :-)
Most of the Apollo range happily talk to a serial console so a
screen/keyboard isn't really necessary. However in my not so humble
opinion, I am yet to see anything that is anywhere near as nice as the
GUI. .
There isn't anything fancy to the token ring cables. I forget the
impedance but the first Apollos I used where two connected back to
back using butchered token ring cables and some nice gold plated
connectors (F connectors is my memory serves me correctly).
From memory, they also boot happily across Ethernet.
Although, 12Mb/s
Token ring is far nicer then 10Mb/s CSMA/CD.
Simon
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Well, an engineer is not concerned with the truth; that is left to
philosophers and theologians: the prime concern of an engineer is
the utility of the final product."
Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Materials, L.Solymar, D.Walsh
8:21 a.m.
On Wed, 2005-07-13 at 12:37 +0100, Simon Fryer wrote:
Agreed! I haven't tested all our earlier Apollos yet anyway, so it's
possible that one might be beyond repair and so become a spare machine -
freeing up a keyboard (I've not tried an early-style Domain keyboard on
a later 4xx machine yet though; electrically they're compatible but I
don't know if the protocol's the same)
The wall boxes are just fancy make before break
connection boxes. The
ring works fine without them.
That's good to hear :)
We're
still short a Domain keyboard here, and I think we only have one
of the little interface cables that connects the network cabling to the
token ring card itself - hopefully there's nothing special to those
though and we can make something up. I'd just like to know if it's vital
to find the wall boxes though! :-)
Most of the Apollo range happily talk to a serial console so a
screen/keyboard isn't really necessary. However in my not so humble
opinion, I am yet to see anything that is anywhere near as nice as the
GUI. . From memory, they also boot happily across Ethernet.
Although, 12Mb/s
Token ring is far nicer then 10Mb/s CSMA/CD.
I've got a feeling that the earlier 3000-era machines don't have
Ethernet as standard anyway (although a card could be added, but I have
no idea what boards the OS would recognise). Using the ATR would seem
like the way to go to make a little domain, with one of the later 4xx
machines that also has an Ethernet interface being used to get to the
outside world.
Memory's perhaps going to be a problem though - I think a couple of our
earlier machines are running rather short on RAM (and of course they're
proprietary modules) - 10.4's the only OS release we have, which might
not run on a memory-starved machine...
cheers
Jules
8:50 a.m.
All,
On 7/13/05, Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
I seem to get the impression that the protocol is the same but I don't
have any reference or experience to confirm this.
The 3K, 4K and 5K didn't have Ethernet as standard. Ethernet seemed to
become a more common option in the later machines.
There was only one board that the Apollos recognised - an early 16 bit
3 Com card. Finding the card is only part of the problem. Apollo had a
custom boot ROM on the card to enable network booting.
On Wed, 2005-07-13 at 12:37 +0100, Simon Fryer wrote:
Most of the
Apollo range happily talk to a serial console so a
screen/keyboard isn't really necessary. However in my not so humble
opinion, I am yet to see anything that is anywhere near as nice as the
GUI. .
Agreed! I haven't tested all our earlier Apollos yet anyway, so it's
possible that one might be beyond repair and so become a spare machine -
freeing up a keyboard (I've not tried an early-style Domain keyboard on
a later 4xx machine yet though; electrically they're compatible but I
don't know if the protocol's the same) From memory,
they also boot happily across Ethernet. Although, 12Mb/s
Token ring is far nicer then 10Mb/s CSMA/CD.
I've got a feeling that the earlier 3000-era machines don't have
Ethernet as standard anyway (although a card could be added, but I have
no idea what boards the OS would recognise). Using the ATR would seem
like the way to go to make a little domain, with one of the later 4xx
machines that also has an Ethernet interface being used to get to the
outside world.
This was quite a common setup.
Memory's perhaps going to be a problem though - I
think a couple of our
earlier machines are running rather short on RAM (and of course they're
proprietary modules) - 10.4's the only OS release we have, which might
not run on a memory-starved machine...
I think there was a minor release after 10.4. There is also a set of
patches for the November 1997 feature.
For the reference of the November 97 feature. DomainOS calculates the
time from a 1/4 second count, with 0 at 1 Jan 1980. The count is cast
as an unsigned integer. The Pascal implementation was incorrect and
treated unsigned integers as signed integers. Novermber 1997 (from
memory) is the time the MSB is set. There are a couple of small parts
of the OS that rely on libraries written in Pascal - which I am lead
to believe have some interesting results.
Simon
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Well, an engineer is not concerned with the truth; that is left to
philosophers and theologians: the prime concern of an engineer is
the utility of the final product."
Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Materials, L.Solymar, D.Walsh
7:09 p.m.
10.4 does not include the SAU's for the very early machines.
I think mine run SR 9.7.5, which supports the DN660 and DN330's as
well as the 3xxx and 4xxx boxes.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jules Richardson" <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk>
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2005 8:21 AM
Subject: Re: Apollo stuff
On Wed, 2005-07-13 at 12:37 +0100, Simon Fryer wrote:
Agreed! I haven't tested all our earlier Apollos yet anyway, so it's
possible that one might be beyond repair and so become a spare machine -
freeing up a keyboard (I've not tried an early-style Domain keyboard on
a later 4xx machine yet though; electrically they're compatible but I
don't know if the protocol's the same)
The wall boxes are just fancy make before break
connection boxes. The
ring works fine without them.
That's good to hear :)
We're
still short a Domain keyboard here, and I think we only have one
of the little interface cables that connects the network cabling to the
token ring card itself - hopefully there's nothing special to those
though and we can make something up. I'd just like to know if it's
vital
to find the wall boxes though! :-)
Most of the Apollo range happily talk to a serial console so a
screen/keyboard isn't really necessary. However in my not so humble
opinion, I am yet to see anything that is anywhere near as nice as the
GUI. . From memory, they also boot happily across
Ethernet. Although, 12Mb/s
Token ring is far nicer then 10Mb/s CSMA/CD.
I've got a feeling that the earlier 3000-era machines don't have
Ethernet as standard anyway (although a card could be added, but I have
no idea what boards the OS would recognise). Using the ATR would seem
like the way to go to make a little domain, with one of the later 4xx
machines that also has an Ethernet interface being used to get to the
outside world.
Memory's perhaps going to be a problem though - I think a couple of our
earlier machines are running rather short on RAM (and of course they're
proprietary modules) - 10.4's the only OS release we have, which might
not run on a memory-starved machine...
cheers
Jules
14 Jul
14 Jul
8:06 a.m.
On Wed, 2005-07-13 at 19:09 -0400, Bob Shannon wrote:
10.4 does not include the SAU's for the very early
machines.
I think mine run SR 9.7.5, which supports the DN660 and DN330's as
well as the 3xxx and 4xxx boxes.
Yep, from memory 10.4 will support the DN3xxx and later, just not the
earlier machines. We don't have anything earlier than the 3xxx's anyway
- it wasn't possible to save the ones that turned up a while ago up
north and they ended up as landfill :-(
Just in case anyone local has anything, we could do with the following
Apollo bits:
Late-model Domain keyboard
Front case flap for a 4xx machine
Foot for vertically mounting a 4xx machine
2 x Front case panels for DN3500 machines
6 x cable adapters (token ring card to BNC)
And of course finding some earlier Apollos and a DN10k would sure be
nice, but I'm not holding my breath ;)
I'd like another five 4xx series machines to go with the three that we
have to be honest - 8 in their own little domain would be nice for the
public to mess around on, and visually would look nice together rather
than a network of random apollos...
cheers
Jules
13 Jul
13 Jul
11:57 a.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Simon Fryer
Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2005 6:38 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Apollo stuff
All,
On 7/13/05, Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-07-12 at 18:16 -0700, Al Kossow wrote:
...
There isn't anything fancy to the token ring
cables. I forget
the impedance but the first Apollos I used where two
connected back to back using butchered token ring cables and
some nice gold plated connectors (F connectors is my memory
serves me correctly).
...
The Apollo cards I have have a strange connector. It appears to have two
coax and a half dozen wires in a DB form factor. I did not get any cables,
so I have no idea what connections are actually used. I can't see how you
could use a modern TR cable with that since it was 4 wire shielded twisted
pair. F connectors would imply coax.
Gil
A. G. (Gil) Carrick, Director
The Museum at CSE
University of Texas at Arlington
Department of Computer Science & Engineering
Box 19015, 471 S Cooper Street
Arlington, TX 76019
817-272-3620
http://www.cse.uta.edu/TheMuseum at CSE/
20 Jul
20 Jul
4:11 a.m.
On Wed, 13 Jul 2005 10:57:21 -0500
"Director" <csmuseum at cse.uta.edu> wrote:
The Apollo cards I have have a strange connector. It
appears to have
two coax and a half dozen wires in a DB form factor.
It is called a 7W2 connector.
I did not get any cables, so I have no idea what
connections are
actually used.
Only the two coax connectors are used. They are simply ring in and
out.
You connect ring out of one machine to ring in of the next until you
closed the ring. The cables are 75 ohm RG59.
I can't see how you could use a modern TR cable
with that since it was
4 wire shielded twisted pair. F connectors would imply coax.
TR != ATR. Apollo
Token Ring is a thing of its own, not compatible with
the Token Ring that IBM and a few others used.
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
7:26 p.m.
Actually several other pins are active. The token ring card can tell
when no cable is installed, so there are at least 2 cable detect pins.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jochen Kunz" <jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2005 4:11 AM
Subject: Re: Apollo stuff
On Wed, 13 Jul 2005 10:57:21 -0500
"Director" <csmuseum at cse.uta.edu> wrote:
The Apollo cards I have have a strange connector.
It appears to have
two coax and a half dozen wires in a DB form factor.
It is called a 7W2
connector.
I did not get any cables, so I have no idea what
connections are
actually used.
Only the two coax connectors are used. They are simply ring in and
out.
You connect ring out of one machine to ring in of the next until you
closed the ring. The cables are 75 ohm RG59.
I can't see how you could use a modern TR
cable with that since it was
4 wire shielded twisted pair. F connectors would imply coax.
TR != ATR. Apollo
Token Ring is a thing of its own, not compatible with
the Token Ring that IBM and a few others used.
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
21 Jul
21 Jul
1:50 p.m.
On Wed, 20 Jul 2005 19:26:52 -0400
"Bob Shannon" <bshannon at tiac.net> wrote:
Actually several other pins are active. The token
ring card can tell
when no cable is installed, so there are at least 2 cable detect pins.
Most likely
it determines this by measuring the impedance of the two
coax connections. But I may be wrong here.
At least I know from some DECstation and VAXstation framebuffers that
they report an error at Power On Self Test when no monitor is connected.
As these framebuffers use 3W3 they have no extra pins for cable
detection. They measure somehow DC impedance, AC waveform or the like to
detect an open wire.
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
2:49 p.m.
>>>> "Jochen" == Jochen Kunz
<jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> writes:
Jochen> On Wed, 20 Jul 2005 19:26:52 -0400 "Bob Shannon"
Jochen> <bshannon at tiac.net> wrote:
> Actually several other pins are active. The token
ring card can
> tell when no cable is installed, so there are at least 2 cable
> detect pins.
Jochen> Most likely it determines this by measuring the
impedance of
Jochen> the two coax connections. But I may be wrong here.
Jochen> At least I know from some DECstation and VAXstation
Jochen> framebuffers that they report an error at Power On Self Test
Jochen> when no monitor is connected. As these framebuffers use 3W3
Jochen> they have no extra pins for cable detection. They measure
Jochen> somehow DC impedance, AC waveform or the like to detect an
Jochen> open wire. --
Either would work. DC impedance is easy -- for a classic
transmission line configuration terminated in the characteristic
impedance at both ends, you'd see a DC impedance of R/2 (37.5 ohms in
this case) if it's hooked up, but R (75 ohms) if there is no
connection.
A peak voltage sensor would work too -- peak voltage when correctly
terminated is the line driver output peak voltage, but with an open
circuit it's double that.
paul
7:13 p.m.
There are etches going to the other pins.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Koning" <pkoning at equallogic.com>
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2005 2:49 PM
Subject: Re: Apollo stuff
>>>> "Jochen" == Jochen Kunz <jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de>
writes:
Jochen> On Wed, 20 Jul 2005 19:26:52 -0400 "Bob Shannon"
Jochen> <bshannon at tiac.net> wrote:
> Actually several other pins are active. The
token ring card can
> tell when no cable is installed, so there are at least 2 cable
> detect pins.
Jochen> Most likely it determines this by measuring the
impedance of
Jochen> the two coax connections. But I may be wrong here.
Jochen> At least I know from some DECstation and VAXstation
Jochen> framebuffers that they report an error at Power On Self Test
Jochen> when no monitor is connected. As these framebuffers use 3W3
Jochen> they have no extra pins for cable detection. They measure
Jochen> somehow DC impedance, AC waveform or the like to detect an
Jochen> open wire. --
Either would work. DC impedance is easy -- for a classic
transmission line configuration terminated in the characteristic
impedance at both ends, you'd see a DC impedance of R/2 (37.5 ohms in
this case) if it's hooked up, but R (75 ohms) if there is no
connection.
A peak voltage sensor would work too -- peak voltage when correctly
terminated is the line driver output peak voltage, but with an open
circuit it's double that.
paul
13 Jul
13 Jul
11:48 a.m.
I would love to see pictures of the ends of the ATR cable. I have some ATR
cards and we will be putting one on display soon but I have never seen a
cable or the wall box.
In later versions of IBM token ring the wall mounted box (MAU) did do
something, but in original IBM TR it was strictly passive. It had some
switches to take devices out of the ring manually, but no electronics. Since
ATR was earlier than that I doubt that the wall box had any active function.
Gil
A. G. (Gil) Carrick, Director
The Museum at CSE
University of Texas at Arlington
Department of Computer Science & Engineering
Box 19015, 471 S Cooper Street
Arlington, TX 76019
817-272-3620
http://www.cse.uta.edu/TheMuseum at CSE/
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jules Richardson
Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2005 6:21 AM
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Apollo stuff
On Tue, 2005-07-12 at 18:16 -0700, Al Kossow wrote:
> Bob said:
>
...
Question for Apollo fans - when setting up an Apollo
token
ring, is it really as simple as just chaining the machines
together in a loop? I seem to remember the manuals (the few
that we do have) mentioning plugging in to wall-mounted
boxes, but it's not clear if those are just for cable routing
or whether they actually do something more important.
...
cheers
Jules
6:24 p.m.
Well, if my memory is working properly, THIS is an Apollo domain
wall box connector. Hey, you didnt say you wanted a pretty picture.
In fact all the dirt on the wall is going to be cleaned up and
repainted sometime in the next month...
http://www-users.itlabs.umn.edu/~lemay/PANA0021.JPG
http://www-users.itlabs.umn.edu/~lemay/PANA0022.JPG
http://www-users.itlabs.umn.edu/~lemay/PANA0023.JPG
-Larry LeMay
University of Minnesota
I would love to see pictures of the ends of the ATR
cable. I have some ATR
cards and we will be putting one on display soon but I have never seen a
cable or the wall box.
In later versions of IBM token ring the wall mounted box (MAU) did do
something, but in original IBM TR it was strictly passive. It had some
switches to take devices out of the ring manually, but no electronics. Since
ATR was earlier than that I doubt that the wall box had any active function.
Gil
A. G. (Gil) Carrick, Director
The Museum at CSE
University of Texas at Arlington
Department of Computer Science & Engineering
Box 19015, 471 S Cooper Street
Arlington, TX 76019
817-272-3620
http://www.cse.uta.edu/TheMuseum at CSE/
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jules Richardson
Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2005 6:21 AM
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Apollo stuff
On Tue, 2005-07-12 at 18:16 -0700, Al Kossow wrote:
> Bob said:
>
...
Question for Apollo fans - when setting up an
Apollo token
ring, is it really as simple as just chaining the machines
together in a loop? I seem to remember the manuals (the few
that we do have) mentioning plugging in to wall-mounted
boxes, but it's not clear if those are just for cable routing
or whether they actually do something more important.
...
cheers
Jules
19 Jul
19 Jul
12:02 p.m.
On Wed, 2005-07-13 at 10:48 -0500, Director wrote:
I would love to see pictures of the ends of the ATR
cable. I have some ATR
cards and we will be putting one on display soon but I have never seen a
cable or the wall box.
I'll see if I can grab a photo of the cable this weekend at the museum
if nobody can oblige before then...
At least one of our Apollos (either a 3000 or 3500) has a TR card in it
that consists of two PCBs fastened together, whereas the more typical
type is just a single full-length card. Whether there's anything special
about the dual board version I don't know.
In later versions of IBM token ring the wall mounted
box (MAU) did do
something, but in original IBM TR it was strictly passive.
Ahh, that was what really prompted me to ask about the wall boxes - I
worked for a software company for several years who favoured IBM TR over
Ethernet, and recalled things not being as simple as just joining
machines together as there was a rack of IBM electronics in the corner
of each room. From what others have said about Apollo TR though it
really is simple and the wall boxes are purely for cable routing.
cheers
Jules
1:12 p.m.
>>>> "Jules" == Jules Richardson
<julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> writes:
> In later versions of IBM token ring the wall
mounted box (MAU) did
> do something, but in original IBM TR it was strictly passive.
Jules> Ahh, that was what really prompted me to ask about the wall
Jules> boxes - I worked for a software company for several years who
Jules> favoured IBM TR over Ethernet, and recalled things not being
Jules> as simple as just joining machines together as there was a
Jules> rack of IBM electronics in the corner of each room. From what
Jules> others have said about Apollo TR though it really is simple
Jules> and the wall boxes are purely for cable routing.
I don't think IBM wall boxes did anything (other than act as a passive
bypass if you unplug the drop cable). The active machinery was in the
wiring closet, to bypass the cable to the wallbox if the workstation
attached to it was turned off.
With token ring you had a choice:
1. Just wire the wallboxes in a ring and plug in the workstations.
Simple -- but if the workstation was off, the ring was down.
(Fixable with a bypass relay -- in which case, if several stations
were off, you'd exceed the cable segment limit.)
2. "Star" wire to a concentrator in a wiring closet, which would
electronically bypass any stations that were off. This would make
token ring fairly reliable, at the expense of a complex piece of
hardware.
FDDI had the same issues only more so, which is why TR failed
eventually and FDDI failed almost immediately. FDDI also suffered
severely from standards committee politics and committee-induced delay
(much of it intentional).
paul
9:05 p.m.
The two-board token ring card is simply an older revision.
One engineer at Apollo told me that the older board is slightly
faster.
Newer ATR boards have special hybrid modules that the older
board lacks. I'd heard that there is something about these modules
that effects the performance of the board at the ISA bus level
of the board.
I think at the register level the two boards are identical.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jules Richardson" <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk>
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2005 12:02 PM
Subject: RE: Apollo stuff
On Wed, 2005-07-13 at 10:48 -0500, Director wrote:
I would love to see pictures of the ends of the
ATR cable. I have some
ATR
cards and we will be putting one on display soon but I have never seen a
cable or the wall box.
I'll see if I can grab a photo of the cable this weekend at the museum
if nobody can oblige before then...
At least one of our Apollos (either a 3000 or 3500) has a TR card in it
that consists of two PCBs fastened together, whereas the more typical
type is just a single full-length card. Whether there's anything special
about the dual board version I don't know.
In later versions of IBM token ring the wall
mounted box (MAU) did do
something, but in original IBM TR it was strictly passive.
Ahh, that was what really prompted me to ask about the wall boxes - I
worked for a software company for several years who favoured IBM TR over
Ethernet, and recalled things not being as simple as just joining
machines together as there was a rack of IBM electronics in the corner
of each room. From what others have said about Apollo TR though it
really is simple and the wall boxes are purely for cable routing.
cheers
Jules
20 Jul
20 Jul
1:34 a.m.
New subject: IBM Token Ring
Originally this topic was about Apollo TR but several questions have come up
about IBM TR. I happen to have spent several years with different vendors of
IBM Token Ring hardware and IMHO am somewhat of an expert on the topic. I
would be glad to answer any in depth questions but I suspect that the
majority of the list members would be bored. On the other had there is
always the delete key. Either way, let me know.
Gil
A. G. (Gil) Carrick, Director
The Museum at CSE
University of Texas at Arlington
Department of Computer Science & Engineering
Box 19015, 471 S Cooper Street
Arlington, TX 76019
817-272-3620
http://www.cse.uta.edu/TheMuseum at CSE/
21 Jul
21 Jul
12:15 p.m.
New subject: IBM Token Ring
On Tuesday 19 July 2005 22:34, Director wrote:
Originally this topic was about Apollo TR but several
questions have come
up about IBM TR. I happen to have spent several years with different
vendors of IBM Token Ring hardware and IMHO am somewhat of an expert on the
topic. I would be glad to answer any in depth questions but I suspect that
the majority of the list members would be bored. On the other had there is
always the delete key. Either way, let me know.
I can help as well. My company was an IBM Business Partner in the 80's we
installed literally thousands of workstations on Token Ring networks all up
and down the East Coast - from Boston to Florida - including wide area
network<->Token Ring.
Cheers,
Lyle
--
Lyle Bickley
Bickley Consulting West Inc.
Mountain View, CA
http://bickleywest.com
"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"
2:45 p.m.
New subject: IBM Token Ring
On Wed, 20 Jul 2005 00:34:14 -0500
"Director" <csmuseum at cse.uta.edu> wrote:
I happen to have spent several years with different
vendors of
IBM Token Ring hardware and IMHO am somewhat of an expert on the topic.
This sounds
like a perfect subject for:
http://www.classiccmp.org/kb/
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
8:46 p.m.
New subject: IBM Token Ring
Actually, I feel pretty retarded, but I may as well ask (pre-emptive
shut-up, Sellam -grin). I have been trying to get my TR network
working for over a year now and can't for some damned reason. Most of
the NICs are either Madge or IBM PCI (a few are Olicom PCI/ISA or IBM
MCA). The hubs are Bay Networks Baystack 504 (loaded with DCM, NMM,
MDA, etc) or Centillion 100 with TokenSpeed 4 port blades mixed with
ATMSpeed/155 and EtherSpeed 10/100 blades. Can't get either to
properly allow the NICs to communicate over the hubs. Tried a lot of
things and still can't figure out what is wrong. Also have an IBM
8228 MAU, but no reset tool to make it work. I have all the cabling
and even tried RJ45<->RJ45 vs. Type 1 vampire<->DB9 cabling -
nothing. Anyone have any ideas? I was dumb and gave my working 3Com
TR hub to a friend years ago, so that is out of the picture. What I
can't understand is why I can't get the 504 working on the network
again after it ran a few years ago when last used.
-John Boffemmyer IV
At 01:34 AM 7/20/2005, you wrote:
Originally this topic was about Apollo TR but several
questions have come up
about IBM TR. I happen to have spent several years with different vendors of
IBM Token Ring hardware and IMHO am somewhat of an expert on the topic. I
would be glad to answer any in depth questions but I suspect that the
majority of the list members would be bored. On the other had there is
always the delete key. Either way, let me know.
Gil
A. G. (Gil) Carrick, Director
The Museum at CSE
University of Texas at Arlington
Department of Computer Science & Engineering
Box 19015, 471 S Cooper Street
Arlington, TX 76019
817-272-3620
http://www.cse.uta.edu/TheMuseum at CSE/
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29 Jul
29 Jul
10:48 a.m.
New subject: IBM Token Ring
On Thursday 21 July 2005 17:46, John Boffemmyer IV wrote:
Actually, I feel pretty retarded, but I may as well
ask (pre-emptive
shut-up, Sellam -grin). I have been trying to get my TR network
working for over a year now and can't for some damned reason. Most of
the NICs are either Madge or IBM PCI (a few are Olicom PCI/ISA or IBM
MCA). The hubs are Bay Networks Baystack 504 (loaded with DCM, NMM,
MDA, etc) or Centillion 100 with TokenSpeed 4 port blades mixed with
ATMSpeed/155 and EtherSpeed 10/100 blades. Can't get either to
properly allow the NICs to communicate over the hubs. Tried a lot of
things and still can't figure out what is wrong. Also have an IBM
8228 MAU, but no reset tool to make it work. I have all the cabling
and even tried RJ45<->RJ45 vs. Type 1 vampire<->DB9 cabling -
nothing. Anyone have any ideas? I was dumb and gave my working 3Com
TR hub to a friend years ago, so that is out of the picture. What I
can't understand is why I can't get the 504 working on the network
again after it ran a few years ago when last used.
-John Boffemmyer IV
John,
I know Token Ring well - but you haven't provided enough information for me to
give you a hand.
1) Have you connected a single workstation successfully to a MAU - i.e. Did it
"open" as expected?
2) Once you've got two workstations/servers connected individually, then test
them together. Although I found IBM, Olicom and Thomas-Contrad to be very
compatible - I'd stick to one vendor until you've got at least two stations
communicating with each other. The drivers for each vendors product and
sometimes model are totally different. Be sure you are using the drivers
appropriate for each vendor's board.
3) Make sure you don't mix speeds! This was a classic problem w/TR networks -
if you mix 4 and 16 speeds, a TR network will go into continual "beaconing".
4) Keep is simple - one MAU - adding/testing workstations - then add
additional MAUs, using the verified workstations at UUT (Units under test).
Cheers,
Lyle
--
Lyle Bickley
Bickley Consulting West Inc.
Mountain View, CA
http://bickleywest.com
"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"
11:33 a.m.
New subject: IBM Token Ring
On Fri, 2005-07-29 at 07:48 -0700, Lyle Bickley wrote:
2) Once you've got two workstations/servers
connected individually, then test
them together. Although I found IBM, Olicom and Thomas-Contrad to be very
compatible - I'd stick to one vendor until you've got at least two stations
communicating with each other. The drivers for each vendors product and
sometimes model are totally different. Be sure you are using the drivers
appropriate for each vendor's board.
I certainly used to have all sorts of trouble with drivers (and
different OSes). As Lyle says, keep it simple at first and get a link
running between two machines with the minimum of hardware in the middle
before adding more stuff.
ISTR finding that 5 or 6 years ago software for the Madge PCI cards
tended to be the least troublesome (just a shame that the Linux driver
was proprietary back then; maybe it isn't these days)
cheers
Jules
13 Jul
13 Jul
7:07 p.m.
The wall boxes are totally passive.
There is a cable that connects the standard token ring board to two BNC
connectors, so the twist-lock wall connector is totally optional.
How many keyboards do you need?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jules Richardson" <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk>
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2005 7:21 AM
Subject: Re: Apollo stuff
On Tue, 2005-07-12 at 18:16 -0700, Al Kossow wrote:
Bob said:
"I've got scads of Apollo hardware and documentation.
Most of it needs a new home, but there has been little interest so far."
Well, I'm interested. Just the logistics of getting it across the
country.
A list of what there is would be nice to see - probably too expensive to
ship it across the pond though.
Question for Apollo fans - when setting up an Apollo token ring, is it
really as simple as just chaining the machines together in a loop? I
seem to remember the manuals (the few that we do have) mentioning
plugging in to wall-mounted boxes, but it's not clear if those are just
for cable routing or whether they actually do something more important.
We're still short a Domain keyboard here, and I think we only have one
of the little interface cables that connects the network cabling to the
token ring card itself - hopefully there's nothing special to those
though and we can make something up. I'd just like to know if it's vital
to find the wall boxes though! :-)
cheers
Jules
6883
days inactive
6899
days old
24 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
-
aek＠bitsavers.org -
bshannon＠tiac.net -
csmuseum＠cse.uta.edu -
fryers＠gmail.com -
jkunz＠unixag-kl.fh-kl.de -
john_boffemmyer_iv＠boff-net.dhs.org -
julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
lbickley＠bickleywest.com -
lemay＠cs.umn.edu -
pkoning＠equallogic.com