Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!motcsd!xdos!doug
From: doug@xdos.UUCP (Doug Merritt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga networking puzzle
Message-ID: <372@xdos.UUCP>
Date: 2 Jun 89 23:55:01 GMT
References: <88G002rZ2c1g01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> <8198@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> <9658@super.ORG> <19518@dcatla.UUCP>
Reply-To: doug@xdos.UUCP (Doug Merritt)
Distribution: na
Organization: Hunter Systems, Mountain View CA (Silicon Valley)
Lines: 64

In article <19518@dcatla.UUCP> mclek@sunb.UUCP (Larry E. Kollar) writes:
>
>AppleTalk is hard to beat for ease of installation, though.  No screwdrivers

Ok, that *is* nice.

>Compare with Ethernet, especially on IBMs:  set the DIP switches on the card,
>open the computer, install the card, and put the lid back on the computer.  OK,
>now for the cable.

Wait a minute! That's a straw man. Installing ***ANYTHING*** on an IBM PC
is a real pain, and always involves all of the above steps, including
*some* kind of cabling problem.

>You have to tap in at a certain spot for each station for
>the transceiver (or do you use an LNI instead?).  Maybe a T-splice for thin
>Ethernet; I haven't looked too close.

Yeah, that certainly is a relative weak point of ethernet. With thin
net you just tap into a T connector. There seems to be some debate around
here as to whether cable length wavelength multiples (from one T-connector
to the next) is important with thin net.

>Now, you do something called "tuning"
>the network.  This isn't voodoo, it's just plain black magic!

Hmmm...we never went through that step here, where we've got dozens
of multi-vendor Unix boxes plus Eye Be Em's on our thin ethernet. What's
that all about?

>Now, how do you connect your PostScript printer to it?  It has to be
>attached to someone's computer, borrowing CPU cycles to serve everyone else 

Yeah; ours is hooked to my workstation. Print spooling barely blips my
performance meter; it inconveniences me not at all. You're probably
thinking about either the Postscript processing done inside the printer
itself, or the document processor that produces the postscript job,
which can (and does) run on any processor on the network, not on the
spooler itself.

> Finally, see how much it costs and
>say to yourself, "do we really need 10 Mbps?"

Not everyone does, and I like the fact that cheap nets exist, although
I have never been able to use one yet for various reasons.

At work we can't afford to use anything slower than ethernet, though.

>the first place.  I was happy to see the announcement for an Amiga AppleTalk
>card; it'll get more Amigas into the art departments of the world (see? we

Hmmm. I missed that. By who, how much, which Amiga models are supported?

>we're just more interested in getting our work done than in having the "best"
>or "most efficient" network.

Probably true of everyone, although different folks have different
standards (and budgets!)
	Doug
-- 
Doug Merritt		{pyramid,apple}!xdos!doug
Member, Crusaders for a Better Tomorrow		Professional Wildeyed Visionary

"Welcome to Mars; now go home!" (Seen on a bumper sticker off Phobos)