4 ms·
What would you have used (prior to affordable switches) instead of CSMA/CD?
by ethbr0 4y ago
What would you have used (prior to affordable switches) instead of CSMA/CD?
- mhandley 4y agoThere were a number of ring-based technologies such as Cambridge Ring that even predate Ethernet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Ring_(computer_network) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Ring_(computer_netwo... The main reason Ethernet won, I think, is that it was really easy to deploy incrementally. It was much more plug-and-play than anything else at the time.
- ethbr0 4y agoMy memory is that every ring topology had pretty nasty failure characteristics around "a single misbehaving/failing client." Which Ethernet has too, but can generally tolerate a much higher level of imperfect reality, while still providing degraded service. Before you could get plentiful high-quality NICs and cabling, graceful degradation was a killer feature.