Jo22 wrote on 2022-07-22, 21:01:

MarkP wrote on 2022-07-22, 20:59:

You sould be using 75 OHM for radio stuff iirc.

For an FM radio (88-108 MHz), yes.

The 10Base2 spec says 50 OHM coax right?

MarkP wrote on 2022-07-22, 21:08:

Jo22 wrote on 2022-07-22, 21:01:

MarkP wrote on 2022-07-22, 20:59:

You sould be using 75 OHM for radio stuff iirc.

For an FM radio (88-108 MHz), yes.

The 10Base2 spec says 50 OHM coax right?

Yes.

Jo22 wrote on 2022-07-22, 21:40:

MarkP wrote on 2022-07-22, 21:08:

Jo22 wrote on 2022-07-22, 21:01:

For an FM radio (88-108 MHz), yes.

The 10Base2 spec says 50 OHM coax right?

Yes.

It was used to network ye olde computer systems correct?

There were three common LAN standards using coaxial cable:
- Thin Ethernet ie. 10base2 - 50 Ohm
- Thick Ethernet ie. 10base5 - 50 Ohm
- Arcnet - 93 Ohm

Grzyb wrote on 2022-07-22, 22:06:

There were three common LAN standards using coaxial cable: - Thin Ethernet ie. 10base2 - 50 Ohm - Thick Ethernet ie. 10base5 - 5 […]
Show full quote

There were three common LAN standards using coaxial cable:
- Thin Ethernet ie. 10base2 - 50 Ohm
- Thick Ethernet ie. 10base5 - 50 Ohm
- Arcnet - 93 Ohm

Thank you.

Some of the less experienced folk getting in to older kit may not have been aware of that. As I mentioned earlier 10Base2 components are quite easy to acquire from a larger electronics component outlet either brick and mortar or online.

Iv found 10MB ISA Intel, Linksys and 3com cards to be really handy for machines with few pci slots, since usually I only use a ISA audio card anyway so there's usually a free slot.

Joakim wrote on 2022-07-21, 18:24:

I have a computer like this and I just hook up it to lan and use the usb device on an other computer to transfer directly to the pentium 1, via Microsoft file sharing protocol. If I had a slot to fill I might have got myself one of those floppy emulators that seem so popular. But I don't transfer a lot of files so it's fine this way.

A floppy Emulator like a Gotek is a good idea, however , I suppose it depends on the use case.
If you aim to transfer larger files (several MB or GB) it might not be a good option, this to the best of my knowledge.

MarkP wrote on 2022-07-22, 22:25:

Grzyb wrote on 2022-07-22, 22:06:

There were three common LAN standards using coaxial cable: - Thin Ethernet ie. 10base2 - 50 Ohm - Thick Ethernet ie. 10base5 - 5 […]
Show full quote

There were three common LAN standards using coaxial cable:
- Thin Ethernet ie. 10base2 - 50 Ohm
- Thick Ethernet ie. 10base5 - 50 Ohm
- Arcnet - 93 Ohm

Thank you.

Some of the less experienced folk getting in to older kit may not have been aware of that. As I mentioned earlier 10Base2 components are quite easy to acquire from a larger electronics component outlet either brick and mortar or online.

With that in mind, I'll just note that for a thin coax setup you need two cards with the coax connector, or one card and one hub. On each connector you plug a T-Piece on one side of the T-Piece a 50ohm terminator plug, then use the 50 Ohm cable with the BNC ends to connect the two open ends of the T-Pieces together. Each run is called a segment, to have 3+ machines on a segment, you wire them all in series, the machines with the terminators are the ends of the segment, you put another T-piece on an additional machine, and wire it inbetween two other machines. With a cable going to each. No terminator on a mid-segment machine, just coax wires off towards each other end. So for two machines, you need two coax NICs, or one and a hub, two terminators, two T-pieces, one BNC connectored length of 50ohm coax cable. For each additional machine, an additional NIC, cable and T-piece. .. Remember however, that this is all "un-switched" each segment shares it's 10Mbit potential among all machines in multiplex. So the more machines you have chattering away, the slower it gets. This is not usually a big problem in a home setup as you tend to do one thing on one machine, and one thing on another... if however you have 4 people over to play doom and try to backup some HDDs over it at the same time, you'll notice.

There is a thread somewhere where someone figured out how to make larger gotek images that actually worked on the drive. I want to say they were 6.8mb?

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-07-26, 14:53:

MarkP wrote on 2022-07-22, 22:25:

Grzyb wrote on 2022-07-22, 22:06:

There were three common LAN standards using coaxial cable: - Thin Ethernet ie. 10base2 - 50 Ohm - Thick Ethernet ie. 10base5 - 5 […]
Show full quote

There were three common LAN standards using coaxial cable:
- Thin Ethernet ie. 10base2 - 50 Ohm
- Thick Ethernet ie. 10base5 - 50 Ohm
- Arcnet - 93 Ohm

Thank you.

Some of the less experienced folk getting in to older kit may not have been aware of that. As I mentioned earlier 10Base2 components are quite easy to acquire from a larger electronics component outlet either brick and mortar or online.

With that in mind, I'll just note that for a thin coax setup you need two cards with the coax connector, or one card and one hub. On each connector you plug a T-Piece on one side of the T-Piece a 50ohm terminator plug, then use the 50 Ohm cable with the BNC ends to connect the two open ends of the T-Pieces together. Each run is called a segment, to have 3+ machines on a segment, you wire them all in series, the machines with the terminators are the ends of the segment, you put another T-piece on an additional machine, and wire it inbetween two other machines. With a cable going to each. No terminator on a mid-segment machine, just coax wires off towards each other end. So for two machines, you need two coax NICs, or one and a hub, two terminators, two T-pieces, one BNC connectored length of 50ohm coax cable. For each additional machine, an additional NIC, cable and T-piece. .. Remember however, that this is all "un-switched" each segment shares it's 10Mbit potential among all machines in multiplex. So the more machines you have chattering away, the slower it gets. This is not usually a big problem in a home setup as you tend to do one thing on one machine, and one thing on another... if however you have 4 people over to play doom and try to backup some HDDs over it at the same time, you'll notice.

Well done sir!

Grzyb wrote on 2022-07-22, 22:06:

There were three common LAN standards using coaxial cable: - Thin Ethernet ie. 10base2 - 50 Ohm - Thick Ethernet ie. 10base5 - 5 […]
Show full quote

There were three common LAN standards using coaxial cable:
- Thin Ethernet ie. 10base2 - 50 Ohm
- Thick Ethernet ie. 10base5 - 50 Ohm
- Arcnet - 93 Ohm

I've always kind of wanted to give 10base5 ago. I've got some of the hardware - long (1-2m) AUI cables and a box of DEC h4005 ethernet transceivers with vampire taps (some new, some old), but none of the special coax cable or terminators. Closest I got was using a "Replacement DELNI" for a little while several years back to network some of my VAXen. You can use one of those like a hub but IIRC it functions more like part of a 10base5 segment in a box; if it was hooked up to a real 10base5 LAN it would count as x meters of cable, etc.

Of course 10base5 would be entirely impractical at home - especially in the small home office I have these days. Plus I imagine the cable would be impossible to find locally and prohibitively expensive to ship internationally.

On the same desk or short row, or across a small room you can hook up the AUI 15pin D connectors in a "null modem" bodge between two 10b5 supporting cards.. https://www.epanorama.net/documents/lan/aui2aui.html

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-07-27, 01:57:

On the same desk or short row, or across a small room you can hook up the AUI 15pin D connectors in a "null modem" bodge between two 10b5 supporting cards.. https://www.epanorama.net/documents/lan/aui2aui.html

Yeah, I guess thats kind of what the DELNI does - its just a box with 9 AUI ports. Kind of like a hub from before hubs were invented. The ninth can be used to cascade to another DELNI (maximum three units I think?) or use an MAU to connect to the rest of the network.

davidrg wrote on 2022-07-26, 21:06:

Of course 10base5 would be entirely impractical at home - especially in the small home office I have these days.

Because of the thick cable?
Dude, please don't tell that all those hams around the world..
They're running RG-213 through all their house, yard and half their nearby forests! 😁

davidrg wrote on 2022-07-26, 21:06:

Plus I imagine the cable would be impossible to find locally and prohibitively expensive to ship internationally.

That's perhaps not needed, even. RG-8 (RG-8U) is an ancient cable specification from 70 years ago or so.
A modern equivalent is RG-213 UBX or RG-214.
Or that newish RM400 (proprietary)..
https://forums.radioreference.com/threads/rg8 … -lmr400.307706/

Just ask your local Radio Shack type of shop/store or its equivalent.
Or ask a CB/Amateur Radio store. They will sell such cables in various lengths.
Just don't forget to ask for N connectors.

Sure, there are other differences to keep on mind, such as velocity factor. But they're minor.
Personally, I think that the vampire claw things is the most thing to worry about.
I don't know what cable type it needs.
Does it need a single-wire as center conductor or does a standed wire, work, too? 🙂

What has 10Base5(ThickNet} and vampire taps have to do with Ham Radio Operators. ? Different cabling construction is used.

MarkP wrote on 2022-07-27, 06:47:

What has 10Base5(ThickNet} and vampire taps have to do with Ham Radio Operators. ?

RG-213, a successor to RG-8, is regularly used by hams.

Vampire clamps do bite into the cable.
Because different materials, center conductors, insulation and shielding types exist, I'm simply not sure if they're mechanically compatible or not. 🤷‍♂️

Some cables have extra aluminium foil under the braid, for example.
That could possibly lead to shorts, if the vampire clamp wasn't made for it.
Or, the there are multiple braids.. Things Iike this.
That's why I mentioned it. Shouldn't hurt to do so as a rule of thumb. 🙂

MarkP wrote on 2022-07-27, 06:47:

Different cabling construction is used.

Please explain. 🙂

Right cabling for the right job. Nothing more nothing less than the specified spec will do wrt networking. The link didn't seem at all realivent either.

MarkP wrote on 2022-07-27, 08:38:

Right cabling for the right job. Nothing more nothing less than the specified spec will do wrt networking.

That's not how I learned things. RG-8U is the base line specification for 10Base5.
RG is the family of specification (Radio Guide), 8 the type (thickness, say 0.08, maybe impedance too), U means general utility, a possible C means copper.

RG58 and RG8 aren't product names, they're a specs merely. Like DE-9, RS-232 etc.
This alone doesn't say anything about quality.
There are many different DE-9 connectors, for example. For soldering, PCB mount, with gold plated pins, with/without mounting screws..

To what I know, some of the RG-8 alternatives have way better specifications.
They have better shielding, higher maximum frequency,
lower loss, are UV proof, the ratio of which it can be bent is less of a problem etc.

Afaik, a cable that can carry high frequency signals excellently should be more that adequate for baseband signals.

MarkP wrote on 2022-07-27, 08:38:

The link didn't seem at all realivent either.

What makes you think so?
It's a discussion of amateurs about RG-8 alternatives - and RG-8 is used by 10Base5, too.
Moreso, amateurs and professionals used RG-8 cabling decades before 10Base5 even existed.
It also was used as transmission lines by the navies around the world, if memory serves.
This cable type was the working horse for many applications.
Any superior substitute should be fine for networking, shouldn't it? 🙂
The less interference, the better (lower) the error rate on the network..

Anyway, let's quote Wikipedia:

"For its physical layer 10BASE5 uses cable similar to RG-8/U coaxial cable but with extra braided shielding. This is a stiff, 0.375-inch (9.5 mm) diameter cable with an impedance of 50 ohms, a solid center conductor, a foam insulating filler, a shielding braid, and an outer jacket. The outer jacket is often yellow-to-orange fluorinated ethylene propylene (for fire resistance) so it often is called "yellow cable", "orange hose", or sometimes humorously "frozen yellow garden hose".[4] 10BASE5 coaxial cables had a maximum length of 500 meters (1,600 ft). Up to 100 nodes could be connected to a 10BASE5 segment.[5]

Transceiver nodes can be connected to cable segments with N connectors, or via a vampire tap, which allows new nodes to be added while existing connections are live. A vampire tap clamps onto the cable, a hole is drilled through the outer shielding, and a spike is forced to pierce the outer three layers and contact the inner conductor while other spikes bite into the outer braided shield. Care is required to keep the outer shield from touching the spike; installation kits include a "coring tool" to drill through the outer layers and a "braid pick" to clear stray pieces of the outer shield.

Transceivers should be installed only at precise 2.5-meter intervals. This distance was chosen to not correspond to the signal's wavelength; this ensures that the reflections from multiple taps are not in phase.[6] These suitable points are marked on the cable with black bands. The cable is required to be one continuous run; T-connections are not allowed.

As is the case with most other high-speed buses, segments must be terminated at each end. For coaxial-cable-based Ethernet, each end of the cable has a 50 ohm resistor attached. Typically this resistor is built into a male N connector and attached to the cable's end just past the last device. With termination missing, or if there is a break in the cable, the signal on the bus will be reflected, rather than dissipated when it reaches the end. This reflected signal is indistinguishable from a collision and prevents communication.
"

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_design_ … nd_installation

The marked passage is about the terminator..
On normal Ethernet (10Base2), it's a dedicated BNC plug with a resistor.
Could be that this must be taken into consideration when installing third-party cable or a homebrew cable.

Edit: Some network types not only allow a bus topology, but also support ring topology.
It provides a second path in case the network is cut at some point.
These don't use a terminator, at least not in this way.

Garrett W wrote on 2022-07-21, 08:30:

I use TotalCommander on retro clients to connect to my FTP server.

I didn't even know Total Commander could do this, even though I've been using Total Commander for years as a way to compare 2 files with each other and to compare or search through a huge amounts of files. Interesting, learned something new today!

I've been using Total Commander since WinXP at the least 🤣, it's a staple for me 😀

Jo22 wrote on 2022-07-27, 13:10:

That's not how I learned things. RG-8U is the base line specification for 10Base5. RG is the family of specification (Radio Gui […]
Show full quote

MarkP wrote on 2022-07-27, 08:38:

Right cabling for the right job. Nothing more nothing less than the specified spec will do wrt networking.

That's not how I learned things. RG-8U is the base line specification for 10Base5.
RG is the family of specification (Radio Guide), 8 the type (thickness, say 0.08, maybe impedance too), U means general utility, a possible C means copper.

RG58 and RG8 aren't product names, they're a specs merely. Like DE-9, RS-232 etc.
This alone doesn't say anything about quality.
There are many different DE-9 connectors, for example. For soldering, PCB mount, with gold plated pins, with/without mounting screws..

To what I know, some of the RG-8 alternatives have way better specifications.
They have better shielding, higher maximum frequency,
lower loss, are UV proof, the ratio of which it can be bent is less of a problem etc.

Afaik, a cable that can carry high frequency signals excellently should be more that adequate for baseband signals.

MarkP wrote on 2022-07-27, 08:38:

The link didn't seem at all realivent either.

What makes you think so?
It's a discussion of amateurs about RG-8 alternatives - and RG-8 is used by 10Base5, too.
Moreso, amateurs and professionals used RG-8 cabling decades before 10Base5 even existed.
It also was used as transmission lines by the navies around the world, if memory serves.
This cable type was the working horse for many applications.
Any superior substitute should be fine for networking, shouldn't it? 🙂
The less interference, the better (lower) the error rate on the network..

Anyway, let's quote Wikipedia:

"For its physical layer 10BASE5 uses cable similar to RG-8/U coaxial cable but with extra braided shielding. This is a stiff, 0.375-inch (9.5 mm) diameter cable with an impedance of 50 ohms, a solid center conductor, a foam insulating filler, a shielding braid, and an outer jacket. The outer jacket is often yellow-to-orange fluorinated ethylene propylene (for fire resistance) so it often is called "yellow cable", "orange hose", or sometimes humorously "frozen yellow garden hose".[4] 10BASE5 coaxial cables had a maximum length of 500 meters (1,600 ft). Up to 100 nodes could be connected to a 10BASE5 segment.[5]

Transceiver nodes can be connected to cable segments with N connectors, or via a vampire tap, which allows new nodes to be added while existing connections are live. A vampire tap clamps onto the cable, a hole is drilled through the outer shielding, and a spike is forced to pierce the outer three layers and contact the inner conductor while other spikes bite into the outer braided shield. Care is required to keep the outer shield from touching the spike; installation kits include a "coring tool" to drill through the outer layers and a "braid pick" to clear stray pieces of the outer shield.

Transceivers should be installed only at precise 2.5-meter intervals. This distance was chosen to not correspond to the signal's wavelength; this ensures that the reflections from multiple taps are not in phase.[6] These suitable points are marked on the cable with black bands. The cable is required to be one continuous run; T-connections are not allowed.

As is the case with most other high-speed buses, segments must be terminated at each end. For coaxial-cable-based Ethernet, each end of the cable has a 50 ohm resistor attached. Typically this resistor is built into a male N connector and attached to the cable's end just past the last device. With termination missing, or if there is a break in the cable, the signal on the bus will be reflected, rather than dissipated when it reaches the end. This reflected signal is indistinguishable from a collision and prevents communication.
"

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_design_ … nd_installation

The marked passage is about the terminator..
On normal Ethernet (10Base2), it's a dedicated BNC plug with a resistor.
Could be that this must be taken into consideration when installing third-party cable or a homebrew cable.

Edit: Some network types not only allow a bus topology, but also support ring topology.
It provides a second path in case the network is cut at some point.
These don't use a terminator, at least not in this way.

A I posted the correct specs for 10Base5 matter. It's the first thing you do. Make shore the components you are using are up to the specification required the purpose..I don't know why you posted that wall of text/diatribe?