@sdarlington @BashStKid @cstross
I had an ex-RM 380z (Development machine in a Verocase!) and a pair of 8-inch floppy drives in a home-built case (from a friend). Other 8-inch experiences (at $Dayjob) were the 3274 comms controllers that used them for their microcode, and an IBM Series/1 minicomputer for one of the customers.
Long ago, and all gone to the scrapyard (like this moose) now. 3:O(>
That reminds me of a piece of kit that Wikipedia famously did not tell people about for 20 years, and only has a sentence about, even now: terminal concentrators.
@JdeBP @sdarlington @BashStKid @cstross Ah yes, the"Departmental Concentrator" aka Ethernet hub. 3:O)>
My late (and unlamented) Medium Brother had broadband installed (Birmingham Cable, later taken over by another company (TalkTalk?)) and had a Mac (like this moose). No install details in the cableco bumf, so I wrote down what he would need to know, preconfigured his Mac, and handed him the ENORMOUS Ethernet hub (case big enough for 30 ports but only 10 installed) + cables, etc. [1/2]
@JdeBP @sdarlington @BashStKid @cstross
Installation bloke arrives and admits "I've never done a Mac before, so have allocated an hour and can come back another day if necessary..."
Medium Brother hand him the bit of paper with the settings, and points to the kit...
Ah... <plugs everything together, boots Mac> We have Internet!
Total time 15 minutes, including drilling a hole through the wall and having a cup of tea.
<EVIL Grin>
I love it when a plan comes together. 3:O))>
[2/Last]
@Cadbury_Moose @sdarlington @BashStKid @cstross
These were not an Ethernet thing, though.
They had 4 or 8 RS232 ports on one side, and a single cable connection on the other to a specialized I/O expansion board that needed just one IRQ to the CPU, with a specialized device driver (or an entire custom version of the operating system) to mux/de-mux the data stream.
@JdeBP @sdarlington @BashStKid @cstross
Going back further... 1970s? We had a box connected to the mainframe that fanned out to a bunch of modems, and sent stock and pricing updates to the tyre depots (who had DEC Rainbows) using BT's "Midnight Lines" - calls between 00:01 and 05:59 being free.
Scrapped over 40 years ago, before I changed employers and learned JES3 instead of MFT/HASP and OS/VS1 + JES2. (Which was something of a shock!)
Cadbury Moose
JdeBP
Charlie Stross