Thicknet/10base5 Test Segment: The Cable is In!

[Paul Koning]

> On Aug 31, 2018, at 3:32 PM, systems_glitch <systems.glitch at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Allied Telesis made a "multi port tap" that provided four AUI ports off a single Ethernet tap. I don't know if it was a repeater/hub inside, or what. It was much smaller than a DELNI or DEREP.

That's not surprising.  The DEC boxes were from the very early days of 10 Mb/s Ethernet, when transceivers and repeaters were large complex circuits.  Remember the DEUNA?  That was two hex Unibus boards, quite full of stuff.

Soon afterwards all that stuff was integrated into an IC or two.  Transceivers were a bit more difficult because of the analog design involved, and not everyone got it right.  I remember a 10Base2 transceiver chip that would take down VAXclusters by sending garbage occasionally.

	paul