One network which I have a particular fondness for is Arcnet. It also used "thick ethernet" (93Ω) cabling, but all stations were connected to a central hub. It was remarkably resilient.
I used it a lot for gaming (LAN parties), back in the days when Ethernet (that's thin coax ethernet) cards were still expensive. Arcnet equipment could be obtained for cheap (or even free), the speeds were enough for gaming (Doom, Quake, Descent), the DOS drivers were great, and overall it was a great solution which Just Worked. Most importantly, it didn't have the problem of one person bringing down the entire network just by disconnecting the cable at his station, which thin ethernet had.
I worked for a systems house in the UK during the 1980s-90s and we were a major UK Olivetti reseller and distributor; Olivetti seemed to have a particular fondness for ARCNET and I was involved in many installations.
One large job I particularly remember was in the admin block of a large seaside holiday and entertainment complex. The block was several floors high and the apex roof was 'U' shaped; when working in the roof space, you could either walk around the 'U' from end-to-end (a total length of about 200m), OR cut across the middle through a pair of external doors and across the central flat roof - but the roof was guarded by some VERY territorial and VERY big seagulls. Using the short cut was a risky business as the gulls would take flight and begin dive-bombing!
Points for mentioning Descent. A decent remake would be excellent... the extra resolution of its successors somehow failed to maintain the grit of the original. We used to play over serial cables before we had ethernet. Incidentally, another favourite at the time was Heretic. For no apparent reason my system used to work much faster at Heretic than anyone else's, showing excellent screen refresh rates despite an equivalent or lower CPU clock. Never quite figured that one out, perhaps the (Oak?) video card, the motherboard, or the RAM clock speed. Ahh, the days before pervasive internet... where social networking meant plugging cables.
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One network which I have a particular fondness for is Arcnet. It also used "thick ethernet" (93Ω) cabling, but all stations were connected to a central hub. It was remarkably resilient.
I used it a lot for gaming (LAN parties), back in the days when Ethernet (that's thin coax ethernet) cards were still expensive. Arcnet equipment could be obtained for cheap (or even free), the speeds were enough for gaming (Doom, Quake, Descent), the DOS drivers were great, and overall it was a great solution which Just Worked. Most importantly, it didn't have the problem of one person bringing down the entire network just by disconnecting the cable at his station, which thin ethernet had.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARCNET for more details.
I worked for a systems house in the UK during the 1980s-90s and we were a major UK Olivetti reseller and distributor; Olivetti seemed to have a particular fondness for ARCNET and I was involved in many installations.
One large job I particularly remember was in the admin block of a large seaside holiday and entertainment complex. The block was several floors high and the apex roof was 'U' shaped; when working in the roof space, you could either walk around the 'U' from end-to-end (a total length of about 200m), OR cut across the middle through a pair of external doors and across the central flat roof - but the roof was guarded by some VERY territorial and VERY big seagulls. Using the short cut was a risky business as the gulls would take flight and begin dive-bombing!
Points for mentioning Descent. A decent remake would be excellent... the extra resolution of its successors somehow failed to maintain the grit of the original. We used to play over serial cables before we had ethernet. Incidentally, another favourite at the time was Heretic. For no apparent reason my system used to work much faster at Heretic than anyone else's, showing excellent screen refresh rates despite an equivalent or lower CPU clock. Never quite figured that one out, perhaps the (Oak?) video card, the motherboard, or the RAM clock speed. Ahh, the days before pervasive internet... where social networking meant plugging cables.
Descent came up 4 months ago on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7948262
http://descentchampions.org/new_player.php
Amen, Descent rocked.
Yup. Arcnet is under appreciated. I still have a small setup for an ancient embedded (STD-Bus) setup. Memories...