Weapons-grade home WiFi suggestions

[ecs0set]

Gary C said:

Thick ethernet needed terminating correctly and the vampire taps had to be installed at the standing wave peaks but other than that it was fairly simple. But mid 90's it would have been thin ethernet I would imagine and that should indeed have been fairly simple.

Ah Thinnet. When you could cable an entire room of 25 people with a single 5mm access hole into the room and if you were being REALLY fastidious, a bit of plastic trunking.

[Lucas Ayde]

Gary C said:

Thick ethernet needed terminating correctly and the vampire taps had to be installed at the standing wave peaks but other than that it was fairly simple. But mid 90's it would have been thin ethernet I would imagine and that should indeed have been fairly simple.

LOL. That was my first experience of networking in my first job. 10base2 coax network with vampire taps which could crash the network when you connected one if the spike didn't pierce the coax sheath just right ..... Marking all along the big coax cable as to where you should attach the tap.

TCP/IP wasn't even a standard then .. we were mostly using IBM SNA for the servers plus essentually what would be called Terminal Servers these days to give RS232 connectivity to HP mainframes for regular users on their mostly 80286 PCs, patched in via telephone style patch panels in the riser cupboards.

The devs got swish Compaq 'portables' that were basically suitcases with orange plasma screens and 386SX processors

[dmsims]

DOVE

[JohnnyUK]

Lucas Ayde said:

Gary C said:

Thick ethernet needed terminating correctly and the vampire taps had to be installed at the standing wave peaks but other than that it was fairly simple. But mid 90's it would have been thin ethernet I would imagine and that should indeed have been fairly simple.

LOL. That was my first experience of networking in my first job. 10base2 coax network with vampire taps which could crash the network when you connected one if the spike didn't pierce the coax sheath just right ..... Marking all along the big coax cable as to where you should attach the tap.

TCP/IP wasn't even a standard then .. we were mostly using IBM SNA for the servers plus essentually what would be called Terminal Servers these days to give RS232 connectivity to HP mainframes for regular users on their mostly 80286 PCs, patched in via telephone style patch panels in the riser cupboards.

The devs got swish Compaq 'portables' that were basically suitcases with orange plasma screens and 386SX processors

Blimey - that takes me back

I was a Novell CNE you know!

[Lucas Ayde]

Corso Marche said:

Gary C said:

There was a product that could use the UHF wiring for TV's in a house as a local network. Shielded Coax is much better than mains wiring but it never seemed to take off.

Still available from a few manufacturers - not too expensive either if the property already has coax installed and running to different areas which isn't being used for cable/tv or any other use.

That's MOCA isn't it? Pretty popular in the US but doesn't seem to be sold over here (maybe not approved). You can import from the US though.

I was looking into at one point as I have coax around the house, used to be be used to distribute the mail aerial feed plus the video recorder output to the kitchen and bedrooms.

It's definitely better than any homeplug product ... gives pretty much a full 1gigabit connection based on reviews I've seen.

[theboss]

Lucas Ayde said:

Corso Marche said:

Gary C said:

There was a product that could use the UHF wiring for TV's in a house as a local network. Shielded Coax is much better than mains wiring but it never seemed to take off.

Still available from a few manufacturers - not too expensive either if the property already has coax installed and running to different areas which isn't being used for cable/tv or any other use.

That's MOCA isn't it? Pretty popular in the US but doesn't seem to be sold over here (maybe not approved). You can import from the US though.

I was looking into at one point as I have coax around the house, used to be be used to distribute the mail aerial feed plus the video recorder output to the kitchen and bedrooms.

It's definitely better than any homeplug product ... gives pretty much a full 1gigabit connection based on reviews I've seen.

There's two standards, MOCA and G.hn both delivering gigabit over coax.

I have coax all over my house from a central location which is annoying as the place is only 10 years old and should have been equipped with cat6.

It's futile attempting to 'pull' cat6 using any of these runs as it must be stapled down left right and centre. I sacrificed a few trying (admittedly somewhat ham-fistedly) so have utilised some of the remaining serving 'hard to reach' rooms with G.hn modems.

You can deploy in a star topology using coax splitters but in my case I've deployed them in simple point-to-point pairs.

Characteristics are very similar to gigabit ethernet with consistent low latency and sustained 1Gbps transfers.

These were the ones I bought - https://www.gigacopper.net/web/en/produkte_cp_en.h... - via Amazon shipped straight from Germany

Not the cheapest but they do as said on the tin.

[anonymous-user]

Hmmmmm this weirdness appeals to me, although I’ve only got one coax socket between the lounge and now defunct rooftop aerial (we use freesat). I do however have a big roll of the stuff in my garage!

[nebpor]

Lucas Ayde said:

LOL. That was my first experience of networking in my first job. 10base2 coax network with vampire taps which could crash the network when you connected one if the spike didn't pierce the coax sheath just right ..... Marking all along the big coax cable as to where you should attach the tap.

TCP/IP wasn't even a standard then .. we were mostly using IBM SNA for the servers plus essentually what would be called Terminal Servers these days to give RS232 connectivity to HP mainframes for regular users on their mostly 80286 PCs, patched in via telephone style patch panels in the riser cupboards.

The devs got swish Compaq 'portables' that were basically suitcases with orange plasma screens and 386SX processors

TCP/IP absolutely was a standard back then and had been since the mid 1980s. Just that you worked somewhere with old crap tech

[troc]

You should just give in and accept the inevitable and set up a token ring network

[Gary C]

nebpor said:

Lucas Ayde said:

LOL. That was my first experience of networking in my first job. 10base2 coax network with vampire taps which could crash the network when you connected one if the spike didn't pierce the coax sheath just right ..... Marking all along the big coax cable as to where you should attach the tap.

TCP/IP wasn't even a standard then .. we were mostly using IBM SNA for the servers plus essentually what would be called Terminal Servers these days to give RS232 connectivity to HP mainframes for regular users on their mostly 80286 PCs, patched in via telephone style patch panels in the riser cupboards.

The devs got swish Compaq 'portables' that were basically suitcases with orange plasma screens and 386SX processors

TCP/IP absolutely was a standard back then and had been since the mid 1980s. Just that you worked somewhere with old crap tech

The 'back then' I was talking about was the late 70's when our systems were designed and ran on a mix of Honeywell DPS6/96 superminis and Intel 8086 Multibus targets. Didn't use TCP/IP or SNA, ran a custom transport layer and boy is that a great security feature these days as nobody would have a clue how to hack it!

Worked quite well

and is still running to this very day, thick ethernet, MAU's and all.

[nebpor]

Ah yes, my mistake - the “mid 90s” part in the comment threw me!

I liberated a whole X25 cabinet of kit when it was ripped out of our companies office. Wish I’d ended up keeping it as the chassis would be very handy now a days ….

[Blown2CV]

Gary C said:

nebpor said:

Lucas Ayde said:

LOL. That was my first experience of networking in my first job. 10base2 coax network with vampire taps which could crash the network when you connected one if the spike didn't pierce the coax sheath just right ..... Marking all along the big coax cable as to where you should attach the tap.

TCP/IP wasn't even a standard then .. we were mostly using IBM SNA for the servers plus essentually what would be called Terminal Servers these days to give RS232 connectivity to HP mainframes for regular users on their mostly 80286 PCs, patched in via telephone style patch panels in the riser cupboards.

The devs got swish Compaq 'portables' that were basically suitcases with orange plasma screens and 386SX processors

TCP/IP absolutely was a standard back then and had been since the mid 1980s. Just that you worked somewhere with old crap tech

The 'back then' I was talking about was the late 70's when our systems were designed and ran on a mix of Honeywell DPS6/96 superminis and Intel 8086 Multibus targets. Didn't use TCP/IP or SNA, ran a custom transport layer and boy is that a great security feature these days as nobody would have a clue how to hack it!

Worked quite well

and is still running to this very day, thick ethernet, MAU's and all.

still running?! wow. I did some work at a very well known global bank on a few occasions in my career and most recently on service sustainability (basically keeping stuff upgraded or at very least in support... they spent $500M in a good year on this alone) and i could see the oldest service they had in production was put live in 1969. Thought that was quite a good innings.

[anonymous-user]

We’ve started running apprenticeships for COBOL programmers. Very complicated billing and payment systems which need maintaining and all the people who used to do it have retired. Seems there’s still demand for such things.

[Gary C]

Blown2CV said:

still running?! wow. I did some work at a very well known global bank on a few occasions in my career and most recently on service sustainability (basically keeping stuff upgraded or at very least in support... they spent $500M in a good year on this alone) and i could see the oldest service they had in production was put live in 1969. Thought that was quite a good innings.

When the word 'nuclear' is included, people get very nervous about changing anything.

We have replaced the reel to reel tape drives and the Control Data Corporation 80Mb disk drives (for which one person could only just lift them off the floor) with more modern units, but otherwise its all as it was when it was installed.

But if anyone comes across vintage computing equipment, please let me know. Donations of 70's stuff to the Northwest computer museum are welcome.

[nebpor]

Gary C said:

When the word 'nuclear' is included, people get very nervous about changing anything.

We have replaced the reel to reel tape drives and the Control Data Corporation 80Mb disk drives (for which one person could only just lift them off the floor) with more modern units, but otherwise its all as it was when it was installed.

But if anyone comes across vintage computing equipment, please let me know. Donations of 70's stuff to the Northwest computer museum are welcome.

Tell me Steve Hall is involved in that museum?!

[Gary C]

nebpor said:

Gary C said:

When the word 'nuclear' is included, people get very nervous about changing anything.

We have replaced the reel to reel tape drives and the Control Data Corporation 80Mb disk drives (for which one person could only just lift them off the floor) with more modern units, but otherwise its all as it was when it was installed.

But if anyone comes across vintage computing equipment, please let me know. Donations of 70's stuff to the Northwest computer museum are welcome.

Tell me Steve Hall is involved in that museum?!

I know Joe (the boss) is in conversation with a Steve Hill ? I just concentrate on fixing the machines.

[nebpor]

I’d have thought Hall and maybe you misheard - I say because he lives north west and has a fascination with buying vintage kit! I assumed he might have been one of the key contributors …. I’ll ask him directly. Lovely guy at any rate, fellow security bod

[Gary C]

nebpor said:

I’d have thought Hall and maybe you misheard - I say because he lives north west and has a fascination with buying vintage kit! I assumed he might have been one of the key contributors …. I’ll ask him directly. Lovely guy at any rate, fellow security bod

Volunteers are welcome. Joe Kay is the boss and can be contacted via the website.

[bodhi]

Gary C said:

When the word 'nuclear' is included, people get very nervous about changing anything.

We have replaced the reel to reel tape drives and the Control Data Corporation 80Mb disk drives (for which one person could only just lift them off the floor) with more modern units, but otherwise its all as it was when it was installed.

But if anyone comes across vintage computing equipment, please let me know. Donations of 70's stuff to the Northwest computer museum are welcome.

I've got an original IBM Model M keyboard (made in Greenock) that I could donate - when I've finished using it of course

[nebpor]

bodhi said:

I've got an original IBM Model M keyboard (made in Greenock) that I could donate - when I've finished using it of course

Greenockian here - great to hear we built something decent