IBM PC Network

[Bill Degnan]

You mean a Tokenray network?

On Sat, May 22, 2021, 4:34 PM Lyle Bickley via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:

> Hi Grant,
>
> On Sat, 22 May 2021 13:34:05 -0600
> Grant Taylor via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
> > Q:  Does anyone have any IBM PC Network hardware and / or software that
> > they would be willing to part with?
>
> My company installed a several hundred IBM PC Network equipped workstations
> "back in the day" ;)
>
> It was a very stable network and had the advantage that one could use
> existing
> 75 ohm cable that could be simultaneously used for video (although, most of
> our installations were network only).
>
> IBM's NETBIOS was integrated into the IBM PC Network board. I wrote a
> network utility program to analyze NETBIOS networks (which was advertised
> in
> "Byte Magazine"). My largest software clients were TRW and the U.S. Navy. I
> tried to get the U.S. Navy as a client (unsuccessfully) - as they had
> bought
> my utility software and complained to me that it didn't support their
> 10,000+
> workstations!
>
> Unfortunately, I long ago got rid of all my IBM PC Network cards and
> related
> hardware. (I still have some IBM Token Ring stuff, though).
>
> We also had several clients who "picked" Arcnet. We never recommended it -
> but
> IT folks had their own opinions - and we were a network/system-integration
> firm
> and would do whatever the the client asked for. (We later got to convert
> all
> of our Arcnet clients to IBM Token Ring or Ethernet. Kinda like "double
> dipping" ;)
>
> By the late 1980's I had converted all of our clients to Token Ring
> (especially those with IBM Mainframes) or Ethernet.
>
> All the PC Network hardware was ultimately scrapped...
>
> Cheers,
> Lyle
> --
>
> > The recent "COMPAQ ISA PC to ethernet" thread got me thinking about IBM
> > PC Network (and ARCnet) again.
> >
> > Sadly, Wikipedia's IBM PC Network article [1] is about the most concise
> > / complete source of information that I've seen in the past.  I'd like
> > to learn more.  I knew about the F connectors on coax cable, but was not
> > aware of centralized device needed to do frequency translation.
> >
> > [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_Network
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> 73   NM6Y
> Bickley Consulting West
> https://bickleywest.com
>
> "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"
>