Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!rpi!sci.ccny.cuny.edu!phri!roy From: roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware Subject: Re: Farallon vs. Nuvotech Star Control (and a new question) Message-ID: <1990Feb28.022101.23635@phri.nyu.edu> Date: 28 Feb 90 02:21:01 GMT References: <88500008@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu> <314@spt.entity.com> Sender: news@phri.nyu.edu (News System) Organization: Public Health Research Institute, New York City Lines: 35 In article <314@spt.entity.com> mdc@spt.UUCP (Marty Connor) writes: > The Farallon StarController has 12 ports, and basically lets you connect > up to 12 branches with lots of machines on each branch to each other. > Gives a potential net of up to 36,000 feet of cable. We have the Farallon SC box and are happy with it. A few comments, though. I think you only get 3000 feet per port if you are using #22 wire. The more common #24 only allows you 2000 feet per port, which can be 1 2000 foot branch, or 2 x 1000, 3 x 670, or 4 x 500. I suspect the Nuvotech box has the same limits. You can interconnect SCs in various ways to get even bigger nets (either direct connectons, or via AppleTalk/Ethernet bridges, like a Kbox). Again, the same is probably true of the Nuvobox. As for the control connection being direct on the Farallon and over the net on the Nuvo, I'm not sure which is better. Granted, network access is more convenient, but I could imagine a situation where the net is so completely hosed that with the Nuvobox, you couldn't even talk to the box to run diagnostics. Now, a question. When I run new PhoneNet runs, I start by plugging a standard tone generator into the modular jack where I want to end up, and trace the line back through the various levels of punchdown blocks in wiring closets until I get back to the central panel where our SC is. Then, I go back to the jack and unplug the tone generator before going back to the SC and making the last punchdown connection to the SC's distribution block. My question is whether that extra trip to another floor to unplug the tone generator is really necessary. My best guess is that the audio frequency tone won't get through the high frequency transformers that PhoneNet uses and I shouldn't worry about it, but I'm not sure enough to risk it. Anybody know? -- Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy "My karma ran over my dogma"