IBM PC Network

[Lyle Bickley]

Bill,

On Sat, 22 May 2021 17:43:44 -0400
Bill Degnan <billdegnan at gmail.com> wrote:

> You mean a Tokenray network?

Wow, never heard of "Tokenray" ;)

BTW: 16 Mbit Token Ring was much more reliable (especially in "noisy"
environments) and considerably faster with more consistent performance than 10
Mbit Ethernet. We won a number of large contracts when other network companies
used twisted pair 10 Mbit Ethernet in "noisy" environments and their networks
failed miserably.

When Ethernet finally went to 100 Mbit, it also had better noise margins
and nearly everyone moved to that (except folks with mainframe computers).
Ultimately, IBM supported Ethernet on mainframes, so that "ended" Token Ring
networks (plus IBM never upgraded Token Ring past 16 Mbit).

Regularly upgrading networks was one of the things that made the
networking/systems-integration business so terrific.

Oh yes, that and we used to charge about $250-$350 a node for network cards
with a 40% margin. Ah, those were the days ;)

Cheers,
Lyle
--
> 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"
> >



-- 
73   NM6Y
Bickley Consulting West
https://bickleywest.com

"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"