Subject: Re: Token ring (UK)

From: Jules Richardson<[email-masked]>
Date: Wed Jul 23 12:14:00 2003

>>Nosiree.  Any PC, any RS/6000, really, any machine with PCI can do token
>>ring.
>
>Token ring didn't require PCI bus, I have some ISA Token ring cards around
>here somewhere

Yep, Madge and IBM (obviously) made ISA boards. I believe they both made PCMCIA
cards too (IBM certainly did, I still have one somewhere). My old company were
exclusively 16Mbit token-ring up until about three years ago (and crying out
for leads on spare parts back then). 

Support for anything other than a Windows/DOS PC was pretty much non-existant
though and as we started using more and more Unix hardware (and the odd Mac,
and Linux on x86) on projects I ended up throwing a bit of Ethernet into the
pot, and things gradually started going that way by the time I left.

cheers

Jules

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From: William Donzelli <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed Jul 23 22:36:17 2003

> pot, and things gradually started going that way by the time I left.

It should be noted that the very first phase of the NSFnet was built 
around RTs with token ring cards. I still have one of the 8228 MAUs from 
the network.

Later phases of the NSFnet used T960 Microchannel routing cards. These are
very cool 80960* based devices that came in four flavors - ethernet, FDDI,
V.35, and HSSI. Until about six years ago, an RS/6000 loaded with a few 
of these cards was just about the fastest router money could buy (except 
IBM apparently never sold the FDDI or HSSI flavors outside of the NSF). 
I have heard there was a token ring router card, but I have never seen 
one. There were apparently also T386 cards - the same technology but 
designed around the 80386 - but I have also never seen one. They could 
have been fantasy Microchannel cards.

*running a stripped down AIX, no less.

William Donzelli
[email-masked]