CCNP - TR Equipment...What To Buy?

Author

TR Equipment...What To Buy?

firechicken

2001-03-29, 10:42 am

Hi everyone. I'm going to set up a home token ring network in my house. Is there anything should know before I go out and spend?

I've been eyeballing some IBM 8228 MAU's at ebay. There seems to be a lot of them, and I was wondering if they are legacy equipment.

Any help, insights, or links would be greatly appreciated!

TIA!

2001-03-29, 10:42 pm

quote:
Originally posted by firechicken
Hi everyone. I'm going to set up a home token ring network in my house. Is there anything should know before I go out and spend?

I've been eyeballing some IBM 8228 MAU's at ebay. There seems to be a lot of them, and I was wondering if they are legacy equipment.

Any help, insights, or links would be greatly appreciated!

TIA!

Those are nice inexpensive MAU's, and do not need power (1 less cable and 1 less power outelet needed in a lab never hurts). Be aware that they do NOT use RJ-45 jacks; they use "Type 1" connectors on the MAU. You'd need to pick up enough cables for your TR equipment. You can get Type1<>RJ45 for PC's with RJ-45 only NIC's, and Type1<>DB-9 for the routers and/or NIC's with the DB9 connectors on them.

You may have to scrounge the web or EBay to find those cables. I paid $3 apiece qty 10 a few months ago, don't have the contact information for my source any more. Whoever you're buying the MAU's from may have some cables around to go with them.

Used TR NIC's are $2 apiece at www.computergeeks.com.

HTH,
doctorcisco

2001-03-30, 10:06 am

Thanks again, doctorcisco! I didn't realize they used different connectors...I'm glad you told me instead of me having a surprise when I try to put it all together!

BTW, did you receive my last email about the NT1's? Apparantly, some peeps haven't been receiving my emails...they were probably gobbled up by the feds

2001-03-31, 12:45 am

quote:
Originally posted by firechicken
Thanks again, doctorcisco! I didn't realize they used different connectors...I'm glad you told me instead of me having a surprise when I try to put it all together!

BTW, did you receive my last email about the NT1's? Apparantly, some peeps haven't been receiving my emails...they were probably gobbled up by the feds

Send it again. Unless, of course, you've discovered my secret ... I *AM* the feds!

Federally yours,
doctorcisco

2001-03-31, 5:25 am

I used to use IBM 8228 MAUs a lot and they were reliable units, came out in the late 80s. They used to come with a tool to reset the relays, basically a 9 volt battery, LED and type 1 connector, that you might need if a port does not work.

The 8228 is good for both 4 and 16Mbps Token Ring and has eight Type 1 ports plus Ring In and Ring Out ports for connecting to other MAUs (left empty if there is only one MAU)

As well as the cable adapters mentioned by doctorcisco there are adapters that plug directly into the Type 1 ports on the MAU to give a RJ45 connector.

Quite a few companies made Token Ring kit and there were clones of the 8228 that had RJ45 connectors as standard, Madge and Andrew are the two names I remember.

Watch out with some of the old IBM TR ISA NICs, these things had memory in the 640K - 1Mb range and could be a real pig to get working. The later ISA (Turbo 16/4) and the PCI cards were much better.

Thinking about it I probably got some old TR kit around somewhere, so I should really see about adding something like a 2504 to my setup.

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