At 15:30 -0400 06/06/2004, 1st PowerMacs wrote:
Date: Sun, 06 Jun 2004 00:29:52 -0400 From: Scott Holder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [1st] Re: What isit? In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
R. A. Cantrell wrote:I just got a big wad of small connectors that have a din8-round connector on one end and two rj-11 phonejacks on the other. Are these PhoneNet devices? Some are made by Farallon, others by PowerUser. What do they do (exactly) and how do they do it? I'm assuming they connect a Mac to a phone line, but what does that accomplish?
Yep, sounds like a Phonenet connector. Basic idea is you plug two or more into two or more Macs' serial ports, run phone lines between them with terminator resistors on the two end ones, and you have networked Mac. You probably wouldn't want to actually plug them into phone lines, but it might well allow it. I've read conflicting reports on whether it works with one side being "it works fine" and the other side being "It damages the motherboard". So, try it at your own risk :) Does work quite well between Macs though.
Telephone cables are four wires, two pairs. One pair of wires is green and red. The other pair is yellow and black. Modern telephone systems use only the green and red wires. PhoneNet adapters are configured to make their connection to the yellow and black pair of wires. So, in theory, it is possible to run PhoneNet over existing phone lines in a home or office.
There are a few complicating factors. First, some installations may make use of the yellow and black wires to support a second phone line rather than running a second cable. You wouldn't want to try to use such a yellow/black pair for your PhoneNet installation.
Second, obviously, the yellow and black wires of one extension must be connected to the yellow and black wires of the other extensions in order for PhoneNet to work between those locations in the house. But in the places where only the red and green wires are used for the telephone, the installer usually does not connect the yellow and black wires to anything in the junction box, because it is just an unused pair of wires.
You can correct the latter problem by going to the box where your telephone wires gather and wiring together the yellow wires and wiring together the black wires.
LocalTalk/PhoneNet also runs great over Cat. 5 and Cat. 3 cabling and the RJ-11 plug of a normal telephone will plug into an RJ-45 jack of Cat. 5 or Cat. 3. So, if you're in a place with ethernet cabling nad your computer only supports LocalTalk, it is possible to use LocalTalk over ethernet cables which are not in use for ethernet. Of course, one must set things up in the wiring closet so that PhoneNet connects to PhoneNet, etc.
Jeff Walther
Jeff Walther
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