Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bu-cs!kwe
From: kwe@bu-cs.BU.EDU (kwe@bu-it.bu.edu (Kent W. England))
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Subject: Re: Do you know about TCL?
Message-ID: <26090@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 16 Nov 88 17:07:36 GMT
References: <123500001@ishmael>
Reply-To: kwe@bu-it.bu.edu (Kent England)
Followup-To: comp.dcom.lans
Organization: Boston Univ. Information Tech. Dept.
Lines: 39

In article <123500001@ishmael> cball@ishmael writes:
>
>There was an outfit called TCL demonstrating twisted-pair ethernet on
>the InterOP88 floor show.  Unlike Synoptics, whose implementation requires
>a repeater to connect it to a coax network, TCL's implementation is
>basically a multiport transciever with twisted-pair out to a "transciever"
>that reformats signals from twisted-pair to normal drop cables.
>The advantage is that TCL's implementation connects to normal coax with
>a transciever instead of two transcievers and a repeater.  In short, TCL
>appears to have a product that is both less expensive and more flexible.

	Sounds like you are asking how to connect to a "backbone"
network.  Most of the vendors working on Ethernet concentrators are
allowing for a "back-end" connection to a backbone or trunk Ethernet
independently of the "front-end" twisted pair transceiver connection.
There isn't really any difference between the "back-end" and the
"front-end" except to allow for the kind of media flexibility you want
and, for the future, to be able to plug in bridge functionality
instead of simple repeating.  All these TP concentrators use multiport
repeater technology, not multiport transceiver technology.

	I suggest you look at:
	Cabletron MMAC
	Ungermann-Bass Access/One
	Hewlett-Packard
	TCL
	David Systems
	Wang
	and there must be others I've overlooked here that were
involved in the 10BaseT standard effort.

	You will find that most of these vendors have options for the
type of "backbone" Ethernet that the concentrator can attach to.

>The problem is that other than the aforementioned trade show, I've never
>heard of TCL.
>
	TCL isn't as well known as it might be.  TCL came out of PARC
where TCL principals built the first transceivers for Ethernet.