Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request
From: roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Re: Why are new Suns thick Ethernet only
Keywords: Hardware
Message-ID: <3771@phri.UUCP>
Date: 12 May 89 15:58:58 GMT
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Organization: Public Health Research Institute, NYC, NY
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Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 7, Issue 297, message 5 of 18

I'd just like to throw in my 2 cents about the thick-vs-thin argument.  As
I've stated so many times, the thick ethernet connectors just plain suck.
The cable is too stiff and heavy and the connector is too weak.  It works
fine in a rack-mount system where there are lots of handy places to lash
the cable down with cable ties, but on a desktop/deskside system, it's
just asking for trouble (and, of course, Sun took a bad design and made it
even worse, with the non-standard mechanical clearances).  The single most
common cause of network failures around here is loose tranciever cables.
Not to mention that stringing tranciever cable is a real bitch; not only
is it stiff and heavy, but you have to chop a hole in the wall big enough
to clear the DB-15 on the end, or terminate your own cables (no thanks).
Not to mention that you need your own $300-or-so tranciever for each
workstation.

We're slowly moving towards thin ethernet whenever we have a number of
workstations near enough to each other to make it practical.  We have a
thick backbone running around the building (because of the greater cable
length allowed) and wherever we have a clump of 3 or more machines with
thinnet connectors, we daisychain them together and plug them into a DEC
DESPR or similar device (single port thick-to-thin buffered repeater) The
RG-58 (or is it 59?) cable is so much easier to run (and to hide, in
places where it has to look good) and connections are much more solid, in
large part because the cable is so light and flexible.

Not having built-in thin trancievers on our workstations would be a real
problem, adding expense to our configuration and making it less reliable
and convenient.

Roy Smith, System Administrator
Public Health Research Institute
{allegra,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- roy@phri.nyu.edu
"The connector is the network"