Subj : Re: Novell NetWare :)
To   : acn
From : poindexter FORTRAN
Date : Thu Jun 03 2021 07:02:00

-=> acn wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

 pF> I started with Netware 2.2 on a Mac network running on Token Ring 
 pF> probably the second weirdest install I'd worked on. It was an all IBM, all
 pF> token ring shop, but the head of HR was a Mac user.

 ac> ;-) Nice.
 ac> Did NetWare 2.2 server really run on a Mac or was it just a client?

Netware ran on a generic 386 PC. Clients were all Mac.

 ac> I've also used TokenRing for a while as my private LAN system.
 ac> I got some used TR equipment and it worked fine with my Linux systems.
 ac> And being 16 MBit/s, it was faster (and being TR, more reliable) than
 ac> 10 MBit/s ethernet which was the alternative back then.

Yep, token passing topologies were the thing back then, when Ethernet was 
all shared space. Before ethernet switches, collisions were a serious issue 
and the network could seriously degrade.

My first switched network used a 6 port 10 megabit ethernet switch as a core 
switch, and 24 port hubs as user switches. That was fancy stuff back then.

I did a lot of stuff with ARCnet back then - seriously lenient. We'd run it 
on different grades of coax, accidentally plug hubs into hubs, and it still 
worked. Passing a token meant that it'd degrade gracefully. Having to set a 
network ID via jumper was a pain, though.

Someone once joked that you could tell who was a network person by asking 
them how many syllables were in the word "coax".


 pF> Novell 3.11 and 3.12 were a beautiful combination of simplicity and
 pF> stability; I had some of those crazy 1-year uptimes you'd read about - but
 pF> on more traditional hardware.

 ac> The NetWare 4.11 system I administered back then also had really good
 ac> uptimes. The only problems I had in the ~7 years were failing
 ac> hardware...

I started to lose momentum with 4.x when they added directory services. I 
had bounced back and forth between managing networks and managing phone 
systems and when I went back, Windows NT had started taking over.

I was a member of a Novell user group in the SF Bay area from 1991-1996, and 
we'd met once at their office in San Jose. I remember being in my 20s and 
amazed at an office campus with day care, a spa, hair salon, day care, a 
food court with high chairs so you could have lunch with your kid, a pond, 
walking paths...

Fast forward many years later and I wondered why my current office space 
looked familiar. My current employer had bought the Novell campus and I was 
working in the same place.



.... Overtly resist change
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