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From: chriso@3comvax.UUCP (Chris Olds)
Newsgroups: net.dcom
Subject: Re: DEC ThinWire Ethernet Station Adapter
Message-ID: <481@3comvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 23-Apr-86 11:53:02 EST
Article-I.D.: 3comvax.481
Posted: Wed Apr 23 11:53:02 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 26-Apr-86 05:03:47 EST
References: <2443@decwrl.DEC.COM> <11434@amdcad.UUCP>
Reply-To: chriso@3comvax.UUCP (Chris Olds)
Organization: 3Com Corp; Mountain View, CA
Lines: 22
Summary: BNC T-taps are better

[ I did not see <2443@decwrl.DEC.COM>, so don't expect miracles ]

3Com's ASD (of which I am a part) just moved into a new building which we
had pre-wired for (thin) Ethernet, and we have spare BNC T connectors in all
of the offices (a normal office will have three). This allows us to add or
move machines around quite freely without breaking the net. If the devices
being connected do not have a connector meant for connection to a T, we have
to take the net apart to move or install it. This should not be a serious
problem because BNC connections can be made in under a second, well under
the timeout period for most software. The problem comes when someone does
not seat the connectors properly, and you get an intermittent network
failure as the cables are kicked and jostled. It is much easier to tell
people never to break the main net - if they want to move a machine (or add
one), all they do is (dis)connect the T from net to the machine (of course
engineers always want to reconfigure the part of the net that runs through
their offices, but T's save a lot of grief from non-technical folks that
just want to move their PC (and don't understand why the net went down -
all they did was open the cable for THEIR office)).

	Chris Olds		{hplabs,glacier}!oliveb!3comvax!chriso

"This is not a disclaimer"