>>> For two hosts, you can use 10Base-T or 100Base-TX cards without a
>>> hub using a crossover cable, as well. It's a lot less messy than
>>> coax, and support for coax is going the way of the dodo. Of
>>> course, coax won't do 100 Mbit/s at all.
>> Problem with the crossover cable is that it only works for two
>> machines. While coax may not be the latest and greatest it
>> definately works perfectly well for many if not most people,
>> providing you do not have a large number of machines on the
>> network.
> But it's a mess. You have to be very careful with conectors,
> terminators, Ts; and make sure nobody trips over the network. It's
> cheap, but a 8-way hub isn't _that_ expensive... and you'll save
> that much on <insert favorite headache pill here> in short time.
I hate to say it, but that's rubbish! I've had far more problems with
TP cable than I've ever had with coax...
For reference, last summer, I installed the network for a school down
in Lincolnshire. The system consists of two layers of network, one
being a hubbed TP segment linking the various classrooms together, and
also linking to the Internet server, and under that, each classroom
has a coax segment linking the various computers in that classroom
together.
In total, there's around 370 PC's linked between the two systems, and
the ONLY problems that have occurred since have been with the TP
system - the connectors appear to be all too willing to work their way
out of the sockets, something that just doesn't happen with BNC.
Cost-wise, the system would have been beyond the school's budget if
they'd had to go with TP cable and hubs in every classroom simply
because of the number of hubs that would've been required...
Best wishes from Riley.
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