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Anybody still using Token Ring networks?

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Unknown_K

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I have a few token ring 4/16 ISA cards and a 100Mbs one (EISA) in a 486 server motherboard (has 10Mbs ethernet which is what I currently use) and was wondering if I should do something with them. Also have a Token Ring Jet Direct card (but no Laserjet to use it on).

The real old Tokenring used those funky plugs but newer cards used rj45 making wiring easier (if you had a hub).

Never seen this stuff in use, Coax ethernet is about the oldest I ever played with.

Anybody here mess with the stuff?
 
I have. In my networking class I got to give a presentation (this is not recent, about a year ago) on the security and speed of token ring when it gets set up right. Good stuff, it's one of my favorites as far as the physical layer. It's secure because any adresses that 'appear' can be blocked, and a buch of other stuff I studied up on but can't remember at the moment. As far as I know if you have a ethernet setup you can't mix in TR. Like I said it's been a year since I did anything with it. Things might have changed. I loves me some token ring. If I had a hub I'd send it to you just so you could set it up!

Nathan
 
We had Token Ring at work for the longest time, and I was quite familiar with it. But it is a dead technology, and there is little (if any) continuing investment in it.

For older IBM hardware it is well supported. The world has moved onto Ethernet though. Ethernet can be so inexpensive because of the economy of scale, something that Token Ring never acheived.
 
I used token ring at Baxter International for 8 years. They were still using it almost exclusively when I left there in 1998. Yes indeed, it was expensive. Real pain too. The idea was the "token" was like an empty train container. It would go round and round (from card to card) and if it was empty you could put your next packet in there and address it to where it was going. Each card was responsible for pulling it's packets off the token and flagged it as empty. So.... one bad card would take down the whole ring unless you had an intelligent hub.

I DON'T MISS IT AT ALL! That coming from a Certified Novell Engineer too.
 
So Token Ring was like coax where if you disconnected the cable from any of the cards (or lost a term) it was dead.

How does the 16/4Mb and 100Mb RJ45 using systems compare to the older style Token Ring? Are they full duplex?
 
Well, of course, 100Mb would smoke 16Mb. The ring would have to be called half-duplex, after all, you had to "wait your turn" as the token electronically went around the ring.
 
Ihave been looking for the cables and cards for a while now. I have the software and would like to build an XT/PC token ring network. When I worked at IBM I used to set them up for sales demos. I never really got to do much more with them than that.
 
mbbrutman said:
We had Token Ring at work for the longest time, and I was quite familiar with it. But it is a dead technology, and there is little (if any) continuing investment in it.

For older IBM hardware it is well supported. The world has moved onto Ethernet though. Ethernet can be so inexpensive because of the economy of scale, something that Token Ring never acheived.
Click to expand...

Until now. A few years back I got six TR adapters for a penny! If it is older hardware that is limited to 10Mbps Ethernet (such as microchannel PS/2s, which don't really have a great 100Mb Ethernet card) then 16Mbps TR will beat the pants off that. With a bridge you can even link in those systems to a good Internet connection.

Very familiar with TR, and have all the needed stuff. On CSIPH (comp.sys.ibm.ps2.hardware) there are a few that still run it on a daily basis. Quite a bit is mixed in with other networking technologies here: http://www.gilanet.com/ohlandl/networking_index.html, but that is a good starting point.
 
I'm actually much more interested in older IBM networking hardware. Before Token Ring for PCs they had 'Cluster' and 'PC Network'.

Cluster is a technology similar to Ethernet, but it is lower speed and the 'station address' (equivalent to a mac address) is setable by machine switches. It runs over coax and was supported on the PC, XT, AT and Jr.

PC Network is slightly newer, and I don't know much about it. PC Network was not supported on the Jr.
 
Terry Yager said:
I think I have a few of the old IBM cards around, if ya want some to experiment on with the Jr.

--T
Click to expand...

Terry,

I realize this is an old thread, but...

I've been looking for an ISA cluster adapter for years. Do you still have them? What about the software for the XT?

Jim
 
I'll look where I think they are...

...<later>...

Found three of 'em, but they aren't cluster adapters, just PC Network Adapters. One is never used, and the other two may or not have been used. No software tho. Welcome to 'em, if ya want. Pm me. BTW, these are full-length 8-bit cards, and they use an 80188 processor. The cable is coax, but the connectors are not BNC. They're F-Jack (like on your TV).

--T
 
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I worked for Merrill Lynch in Jacksonville, Florida, from April 2001 through May 2005. For about the first year or so, our whole building was wired for Token Ring. I was totally astounded, until one of the managers told me that ML was very slow to change technologies.
 
DoctorPepper said:
I worked for Merrill Lynch in Jacksonville, Florida, from April 2001 through May 2005. For about the first year or so, our whole building was wired for Token Ring. I was totally astounded, until one of the managers told me that ML was very slow to change technologies.
Click to expand...

Later TR cards had UTP connection options & you could get "media converters" for even the DB-9 connections on older adapters too. That way you can use standard CAT5 (or better) cabling for TR (making sure that you had whatever MAUs or CAUs at the appropriate points however). A trivia question/response can be what "CAT4" cabling was (used for 16Mbps TR).

Old TR "Type 1" cabling had its problems (thickness, large connection headers), so there were alternatives...
 
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