Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!audiolab.UWaterloo.ca!croehrig
From: croehrig@audiolab.UWaterloo.ca (Chris J. Roehrig)
Subject: Re: that darn ethernet question again...
Message-ID: <1990Oct17.060749.25879@watserv1.waterloo.edu>
Keywords: ethernet
Sender: daemon@watserv1.waterloo.edu
Organization: University of Waterloo
References: <9037@helios.TAMU.EDU> <1990Oct14.063939.13655@midway.uchicago.edu> <1990Oct15.172148.9691@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 90 06:07:49 GMT
Lines: 33

A cheap way to connect to thick ethernet is through a gateway. This isn't
as expensive as it sounds.  We have an old door-stop PC XT clone with
two Western Digital cards (WD8003E Ethercard Plus, $250 CDN each; you should
be able to get them for under $200 (US$)) running Vance Morrison's PCRoute 
(available via ftp from accuvax.nwu.edu in pub/pcroute).

One ethercard runs thin-wire to your NeXT (and any other machines you have;
the thin-wire is your own subnet). The other card is connected directly to
the thickwire tranceiver drop (NOT directly to the thick-wire itself); you
need a tranceiver and a drop cable. If you already have those, fine; if not
they cost about $300; your network hardware guy will be happy to 
install one for you and bill it to your grant).
You'll need Internet ID's for the NeXT, both ethernet ports on the PC,
and a subnet address.

The speed of the gateway is extensively documented in the docs for
PCRoute. For an 4.77MHz XT, the throughput is 1.8 Mbit/sec; for a 16MHz
AT, it's 4.1 Mbit/sec. Unless you are regularly doing some serious data
transfer, you won't notice any lack of speed with the 4.77 MHz clunker.

So if you have a thick-wire drop and a PC lying around (we got ours free
from CS labs who are unloading truckloads of them), the total cost is 
$400-$500 and you have your own thinwire subnet. (And as an extra bonus, 
you don't have your network administrator screaming at you for mucking
about on his net :-) )

We also have a bunch of PC's (with Ethercards) connected to the 
subnet running NCSA's Telnet (ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu) each of which 
provides a really slick multi-session terminal into our NeXT.

Chris Roehrig
Audio Research Group
University of Waterloo, Canada