Re: AFP protocol

David Empson <dempson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Tim Streater <tim.streater@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rowland McDonnell) wrote:

[snip]

There was also some funny Apple Ethernet card(s) that you had to buy an
adaptor for so you could connect it to the wiring. I don't think I ever
met that in real life.

Are you thinking of the cards with the AAUI adapter?

I think that's the one.

The original
ethernet spec called for various voltages to be sent down from the
computer to the transceiver,

???

Er?

That is quite correct, if you are using an AUI connector.

But what does it mean?

so the AUI connector and the up to 50m of
fairly heavy duty cable were a bit of a pain to deal with.

I met, in the 1980s, plenty of workstations hooked up to Ethernet
directly. I didn't see any wiring that looked a pain to deal with.

The original Ethernet, now known as "Thick Ethernet" (10Base-5) is a fat
an inflexible yellow coax cable

Not that fat or inflexible. And not always yellow either.

which uses a "vampire tap" where you
push a sharp pointed plug directly through the outer insulation and it
pierces the inner core. These taps have to be a minimum of 1 metre
apart, and the network itself is permanent. The transceiver is mounted
directly on the vampire tap.

Yep - seen that. Forgot the details, mind.

A cable runs from the transceiver to the
AUI socket on the computer (DA-15). I expect this is the heavy duty
cable that Tim is referencing.

Righto.

I've never seen one of these networks - they may have been used in some
places while I was at university (late 1980s) but out of sight.

I've seen it - Manchester University, late 80s-early 90s.

The next generation was "Thin Ethernet" (10Base-2), which uses more
reasonable sized black coax cables that use BNC sockets, but can't
travel as far as Thick Ethernet (200 m instead of 500 m) and the network
has to be interrupted to connect or remove a transceiver or T-junction.

Met that too - I had no idea the cable run spec was so short.

These can also be connected to an AUI socket, but it was more common by
the time I was using them to have a BNC socket on the computer, with a
T-junction to hook directly into the coax.

The third generation was "Twisted Pair" (10Base-T) which requires a
point to point connection using Cat3 unshielded twisted pair cables, and
RJ-45 plugs. It could also be connected to an AUI via the appropriate
transceiver, but it more common by the early 1990s to have a built-in
RJ-45 socket (Apple didn't catch up until 1995). These require a hub (or
switch) unless your network consists of only two devices.

Yup.

Apple made the excellent decision to simplify that so you could connect
to the Ethernet with a few metres of much lighter cable - and a smaller
connector on the interface card.

Could you point me at some pretty pictures that show this? The Apple
way always struck me as being more awkward and done purely to wringe
more money out of the long-suffering customer who was resigned to having
to buy a special Apple adaptor any time he wanted to connect his Mac to
the non-Mac world.

I have no argument about Tim's claim of a smaller connector, but wasn't
aware that it helped to make the cable lighter.

I wasn't aware that Apple's method was any sort of *simplification*.

My impression is that Apple's AAUI was just a different connector which
had the same signals as AUI, but in a smaller profile, and it avoided
the risk of confusing the standard Apple video connector (DA-15) with
the Ethernet socket. I haven't looked into the full technical details.

Righto. btw, what's AAUI and AUI in this context?

I never bothered using an AAUI (or AUI, for that matter) - I've only
ever used built-in BNC on early third party Mac Ethernet cards, or a UTP
(RJ-45) socket. I think I have an AAUI to UTP adapter floating around
somewhere in my collection of miscellaneous junk but I've never needed
to connect an early 1990s Mac to Ethernet.

From a quick scan of Mac history it looks like the AAUI socket was
introduced in 1991 (Quadra 700 and 900), the UTP socket was added in
1995 (Power Macintosh 7200, 7500, 8500 and 9500) and the AAUI socket was
dropped in 1997 (Power Macintosh G3).

My first Mac was purchased in 1996 (a PowerMac 7600, after migrating
from the Apple IIgs which only supported LocalTalk) so I was lucky to
avoid the AAUI-only generation.

I've never seen the old Mac way in action.

Rowland.

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