Retro networking / WAN communities

[Grant Taylor]

On 4/12/22 11:44 AM, Paul Koning wrote:
> In my experience, "hub" is a vague marketing term. ...
> 
> Non-learning layer 2 packet switching devices to me are hypothetical 
> beast, I never met one and I'm glad I didn't.

Nope.  Hubs are definitely not a marketing term, nor a hypothetical beast.

See the quote from the following Cisco page.

--8<--
Are an Ethernet switch and hub the same?

No. While they are both examples of data network hardware, a hub is a 
Layer 1 device, which is part of the physical transport layer and acts 
as a broadcast/aggregator but does not manage any of the traffic.

An Ethernet switch manages the flow of data, directing data it receives 
in one port to another port based on information in a data packet's 
header, namely the sending and receiving MAC addresses. The switching 
process significantly improves the efficiency of the network as opposed 
to a hub.
-->8--

Link - What Is an Ethernet Switch?
  - 
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/switches/what-is-an-ethernet-switch.html#~q-a

> Building such a thing would be a silly thing to do in my view.

Well, it may be silly, but a non-learning device, or "hub", was ~> is 
very much a thing that was mass marketed and sold all over the place.

Switches supplanted hubs for obvious reasons in the mid-to-late '90s.



-- 
Grant. . . .
unix || die