viraf@gwusun.gwu.edu (Viraf Bankwalla) (08/04/89)
Hi, We at the George Washington University, are currently looking at running PhoneNet, to connect an odd 60 offices to an AppleTalk net. The machines comprise of Mac's and PC's which will be mainly used to print, and telnet. We would like to avoid running any new cable. Connecting each office to a port on the StarController would prove to be far too expensive. How have others done this ? I was wondering if each port of the StarController could be connected to a passive star, thus enabling us to connect 12*6=72 offices with a single controller, and without running any new cable. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. viraf bankwalla viraf@gwusun.gwu.edu uunet!gwusun!viraf
josefk@well.UUCP (William B. Douglas) (08/12/89)
In article <8908081432.AA12823@aquarium.ecn.purdue.edu> moyman@AQUARIUM.ECN.PURDUE.EDU (Mike "appletalk" MacMoya) writes: > >...With this in mind you can easily picture *many* more >than 48 macs connected through a star controller... >--moya > Hmm. You can _picture_ it, but would you _do_ it? I hope not. While the ostensible addressing limit of a LocalTalk net is 254 devices, the bandwidth maxes out at about 50 (presuming PhoneNET - it usually dies quicker on Apple hardware). So, you could have a Star Controller with 10 1-machine ports, 1 branch each, and 1 port with 35 machines distributed across four branches, and one port with a bridge or gateway to get you the rest of your net. You really shouldn't try to cram more than about 50 devices onto your LocalTalk net. I assume you're not going to try to support more than one net per Star Controller. More typical is an even distribution of machines across ports, with things like gateways given their very own port. Another helpful hint from blackey douglas, tech support, farallon computing. -- josefk@well.sf.ca.us {apple,hoptoad,hplabs}!well!josefk Dissemination: the upside of entropy