• rekabis@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      11 days ago

      But are you older than token ring?

      Considering that token ring was first released by IBM almost exactly a decade after TCP (which I was very specific about - TCP specifically, not TCP/IP), then I would most definitely say yes, I am very much older than token ring.

      Token ring was introduced as a low-cost networking option for smaller offices that did not require the use of (at the time) fiendishly expensive switching and routing equipment. If you wanted to hook a bunch of machines together into a network and had no need for external access, you quite literally needed only the cabling and the cards that were installed in the computers. No hubs. No switches. Nothing else.

      Of course, using token ring also allowed techs to engage in shenanigans such as - when the ring was broken in some way - getting a junior tech to crawl around on the floor looking for the break and the token that fell out of it, to stuff it back into the cable. Sometimes we even did that with particularly difficult customers.