Hello Mike!
19 Oct 97 22:24, Mike Bilow wrote to Jonathan Hunter:
 JH>> I've got three Arcnet cards (SMC) lying around here, that
 JH>> I'm itching to play with - just for fun :-)
 MB> You must be easily entertained.
:-) Just curious (and rather bored at the moment, though I don't know why! 
I've certainly got plenty of work (CGI script writing, server admin etc) on 
the go at the moment..)
 JH>> Would standard RG/58U cable work, or is this not a good idea?
 MB> Officially, you should use RG-62, which is 93 ohms.  Unlike Ethernet,
 MB> ARCnet is amazingly tolerant stuff, and RG-59 at 75 ohms or RG-58 at
 MB> 50 ohms would work if you did not run too much distance.
Right - thanks.
 JH>> I also remember somebody in here (I think it was Mike???)
 JH>> saying that "Arcnet will run over anything, even barbed wire!".
 JH>> I realise this was only a jokey example and not meant to be
 JH>> gospel truth, but does this mean I can use "sub-standard" cable
 JH>> when wiring up my 'development' network segment?
 MB> I don't recall saying precisely those words, but I may have.  There is
 MB> a fair amount of truth to this, and ARCnet is not picky.
I'm sure /someone/ did, because it sticks out in my mind!  No idea who it 
actually was, though I'm fairly sure it was you >:-)
 JH>> What are the worst consequences of using the wrong kind of
 JH>> cable with these network cards? Presumably they will simply not
 JH>> work, and I can't actually do them much permanent damage...?
 MB> No, you certainly can't do any damage.  The worst problem is that the
 MB> LAN would not work at all.  Another possibility is that you will
 MB> create standing waves on the wire because of the impedance
 MB> discontinuities, and this will allow you to hear some stations but not
 MB> others.  The most likely possibility is that you will have power loss
 MB> on the wire, which will reduce your distance.
Right. Well on my test network I'm likely to only have 2 or 3 stations 
anyhow, so I guess if it works I'll just be thankful, and leave it at that!
[...]
 MB> I'm something of the expert on running Samba over ARCnet.  I dived
 MB> into this because a local Catholic high school received a donation of
 MB> a whole network of machines with ARCnet cards already installed.  You
 MB> need to configure the arc0e pseudo-device which piggybacks on the arc0
 MB> device, but it does work solidly.
Thanks, I'll give that a go soon!
Jonathan 
... No matter what goes wrong, there is always somebody who knew it would.
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