[aus.mac] Appletalk

bmp@bull.ecs.oz (Bruce Paterson) (05/03/90)

	I have been investigating ways of implementing a custom
slow speed (approx 100->200k) CSMA/CD network for an industrial
application. It would be RS485 levels half duplex on twisted pairs.
Whatever hardware is used needs to interface to a standard microprocessor
in the field.
	It would also be nice if an off the shelf PC_AT board could
be modified to be used on the same network.

	There are a number of options, but recently a Zilog Sales thingo
mentioned that their SCC is used for appletalk, which apparently operates
about 200k.

	My questions are:
1) Is appletalk a true CSMA/CD network, or does it use token passing or
   some such other software method ?
2) If it is CSMA/CD, what hardware does the collision & carrier detection ?
   Does the RX pin monitor the transmission for illegal transitions ?
   Which encoding is used ?
3) Anyone know the circuit ?
4) Are any PC boards available that can talk on appletalk ?

Please mail replies if you can as I can't get to look at the mac groups
very often.

				Thanks muchly, Bruce

-- 
|Bruce Paterson                 ACSnet: bmp@cow.ecs.oz     bmp@ecs.oz          |
|Electronics Engineer           UUCP:	...seismo!munnari!bmp@cow.ecs.oz       |
|Email $companyname             Just don't mention the word mattress !         |