[rescue] U30--thanks

[Joshua D Boyd]

On Tue, Aug 06, 2002 at 10:34:52PM -0400, Katherine Strojny wrote:
> 
> My only exposure to FDDI was ordering it for a couple of HP T520s in ~1996,
> and I forget the integer in front of the 3 zeros but the cost was
> prohibitive enough that it never, ever occurred to me that I might want to
> run it at home.  (Er, before falling under the influence of this list,
> anyway.)

OK.  PCI FDDI adapters will run you from $1 (for some sun PCI cards
that are only 32bit, and close on ebay in an hour with no bids so
far), to $35 for DEC DEFPA cards (the most widely supported,
solaris/sparc support unknown,  but definately good for just about any
other machine you might have), to what ever the syskonect cards cost.
I see an official sun one for $200, but I believe the non official
ones are far cheap, like sub $100.  Dave could give you the details.
Frankly, other than coolness, I'm not sure that 64/66 PCI gets you
anything here, other than perhaps lightening the load on the rest of
the bus somehow.

Cables are $5 up.  Concentrators are readily available for $100, but
can often be had for less.  

To connect all the FDDI stuff to your existing network, you will
either need to have one of your computers bridging networks, or you
will need a concentrator with ethernet uplink (preferably 100mbit, but
this will probably either be expensive, or you will have to be very
patient), or an ethernet switch with FDDI uplink (again either
expensive or you will need to be patience.  Mine cost me $65).

So, your total cost could easily be well under $100, or it could cost
as much as the U30, or if you let yourself get carried away, if could
cost a lot more.
 
> When I look at my other systems (not good FDDI candidates, I think) and my
> ISP connection for the next few months (POTS), the only reason I could see
> for doing FDDI on the U30 would be for the fun of it.  Another factor here
> is that I've been gypsying around a lot ... 802.11a|b tends to be the most
> appealing option when I think about setup/takedown.

You don't have an at home file server or database server?  Those would
both benefit from FDDI.

Also, a properly optimized squid cache would benefit from a FDDI
connection between it and your desktop.  Basically, any time large
chunks of data is being send, FDDI is supposed to be better.

And hey, technically, FDDI is wireless.

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd