[thechat] Peer-to-Peer II

martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com
Thu Apr 5 07:50:44 CDT 2001


Memo from Martin P Burns of PricewaterhouseCoopers

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Hi Tamara

Network cables tend to come in 3 flavours:
1) 10BaseT - the ends look like larger phone connectors. Cat5 would
    nearly always look like this. The idea of this is that machines
*should*
    all connect to a central hub (ethernet hubs are cheap btw), but if you
    have crossover cable, then you can directly connect 2 machines.
    100BaseT is the same - uses the same cables, but you need faster
    ethernet cards & hub.
    It's unlikely you'd be sold anything but this kind of card or cable
unless
    you specified

2) Thinnet or 10Base2 - looks like a coax cable like the analogue cables
    used to connect your TV to the ariel or VCR (ie not SCART!). Slower
    than 10BaseT, and designed more for connecting in a daisy chain.
    Common in older networks, although most people with this are (or will
    be thinking of) moving to 10BaseT.
    Older network cards may have one port for this and one for 10BaseT.

3) AAUI or Thicknet. Looks like a serial plug on each end. Very old and
    slow. Never knowingly seen one of these in action, although I have a
    *very* old 3com ISA card (rescued from a machine going to the tip)
which
    supports all 3 types.

In all 3 cases, the plug on each end of the cable should be the same,
unless
someone has rewired it, which is an "emergency only" procedure as it's less
hassle just to buy another cable or card.

It *sounds* like you might have Thinnet on one machine and 10BaseT on
the other. Recommendation? Strip the Thinnet card out, nip down to the
shop and buy a cheap PCI P'n'P 10BaseT card. It should only be $20 or so.

The caveat is, as always, "be more careful with product choices if you're
using it on Linux" - you'll get a Win & (probably) Mac driver install disk
with
almost any PnP card. It will need manually configuring if installing on
Linux
(probably).

Cheers
Martin





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Subject:  [thechat] Peer-to-Peer II


Do the Cat5 cables come with different ends?

It plugged right into the new machine (thanks Ron, it /is/ angus), but the
Win95 boxes have a smaller connection. More like a phone connection.

When I take the munchkin to school I'll see if any of the stores around
here have the one William Anderson suggested and if the ends are different.
We're on plan C here already, so I would rather not wait on mail order.

The one my husband has is stamped CAT .5 UTP 24AWG 4 pairs E138922 and
whole bunches of other stuff. So, I'm assuming it's not the right cable?
And, if I'm right, why? When he gets home tonight it would be fun to tell
him and then I'll seem smart.




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