By Sean Fahey True story: Back in the early 90’s, I was called in to help install a network in one of our area offices. I had no involvement in specifying the network topology or buying the equipment for the site. That was all Central Office’s responsibility. I should also mention that the powers-that-be wanted the network up and ready to use the next day, no excuses.
The first thing I was asked to do was install NICs in the computers (about 20 of them). Back then, the network card wasn’t integrated on the mainboard like they are today. Network interface cards were expensive, and they required manual configuration. So, around I went, installing and configuring all these 3COM ethernet NICs, installing drivers and updating AUTOEXEC batch files. I think it took about 4 hours.
Then came the next requested task, install the hub, insert the media cards and connect the patch cords. I started unpacking all that, and… to my chagrin, saw that the media cards for the Cabletron chassis were all Token Ring MAUs. Every single one.
About this time, I’m close to losing it. I had a deadline, I had already installed NICs… well, I was just hopping mad. I just couldn’t get all the replacement parts I needed in time. I did happen to have several adapters (but I had to make a few more).
Fortunately, I was able to find a spare PC and a dumb Ethernet hub and thanks to some creative kludging (Novell NetWare rocks), I put together the world’s crappiest but still somewhat useful Token Ring/Ethernet bridge — which worked until the proper media cards for the Cabletron chassis could arrive.
The office was always supposed to be a Token Ring network, but the buyer bought ethernet cards by mistake because they were cheaper and they didn’t know the difference between Token Ring and Ethernet. Agency procurement personnel just went by what the purchase order said, and if it wasn’t clear enough, they’d guess or ask the vendor to clarify. They didn’t bother to ask the end-user/installer. Networking is SO EASY after all.
Why bother with Token Ring at all? Good question. The agency that approved all tech projects at our level was a very conservative, mainframe-centric organization with strong ties to IBM. This was the same agency that for a few years blocked our requests to purchase personal computers. The reason: too much computing power in the field. What? Eventually it became obvious they were protecting the big iron and bureaucracy (their power) from the harder to control PC mavericks in the area offices.
If you guessed this had to be a government gig, you get a gold star.