OT: cat 5 cable, ethernet, connection jacks

[Henry Spencer]

On Thu, 24 Mar 2005, Gord Jeoffroy wrote:
> What you've got there is known as a "linear bus" topology...
> It's not wrong; it's just not necessarily the best solution.

Uh, no, with twisted-pair wiring it *IS* wrong.

The old coaxial-cable Ethernets were linear buses, yes.  But modern
twisted-pair Ethernet is *different*.  It's not just a translation of the
coaxial-cable Ethernet onto a different wiring type; the signaling scheme
is drastically altered, and fundamentally depends on the wiring *not*
being a "party line".  Twisted-pair Ethernet is necessarily a "star" 
topology, where wires run only from computer to hub, with all the
shared-networking stuff done in the hubs.  This is an explicit assumption
of the design, not just the way most people happen to do their wiring.
Wiring it as a linear bus won't work. 

(Yes, it's possible to build a twisted-pair linear-bus network, with
suitable electronics, but that's not the approach that was chosen for
Ethernet.)

                                                          Henry Spencer
                                                       henry-lqW1N6Cllo0sV2N9l4h3zg at public.gmane.org

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