'I wonder what this cable does': How to tell thicknet from a thickhead
- Reference: 1660293006
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/08/12/on_call/
- Source link:
Our tale today comes from a reader Regomized as "Jon", who was working for a small software development company in Cupertino, California (no, not that one.) One of the company's customers was a large corporation (also not that one) and the principal contact was their Director of Engineering "who was ... let's say a bit of a loose cannon," said a diplomatic Jon.
"This individual would show up to talk to our management, toting a Compaq luggable, and we'd put him into a conference room to wait while we gathered the requested people. And with remarkable frequency, shortly afterward, the network would go down."
[2]
Frantic calls were made. Users scrambled for connectivity. But the connection (pun not intended) was not made until the fourth time the network toppled over and the root cause was discovered.
[3]
[4]
First, a little bit of background on Jon's network. The backbone was thicknet, and off it sprung thinnet extensions. The thicknet backbone terminated in the very conference room where our friend, the Loose Cannon, was deposited. The terminator on the end of cable was just one of the critical parts of the network and, if missing, would mean some pretty severe communication disruption.
You can probably see where this is going.
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The Loose Cannon's luggable sported a thinnet Ethernet card. And there was the end of the thicknet backbone, with a connector that looked for all the world like it would make a good fit and introduce the luggable to the network.
"Once he'd noticed this fact, being somewhat short on precise knowledge of how thinnet worked and also, as mentioned, a Loose Cannon, he would just pop the terminator off the end of the thinnet and plug it directly onto his network card without a T."
Naturally, no permission was requested. There was a cable. A handy connector. He was sat alone. What could go wrong?
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The network would immediately crash, but for our Loose Cannon it simply looked like he couldn't connect to anything. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, he'd simply unplug his Compaq, put the terminator back on and carry on as though nothing had happened.
[7]Be careful where you install software, and who installs it
[8]Psst … Want to buy a used IBM Selectric? No questions asked
[9]Not to dis your diskette, but there are some unexpected sector holes
[10]You can buy a company. You can buy a product. Common sense? Trickier
Three times he did this, unleashing all manner of mayhem outside the conference room. But for him, it was simply duff connectivity. Or perhaps some really good security. Either way, Compaq's heftiest and finest remained resolutely offline.
The fourth time, however, he was caught in the act. Either by someone turning up with beverages and cookies as cables were connected or support staff that had developed a nervous tic when the something-bad-has-happened pager went off.
Sadly, the education that was dispensed is lost to the mists of time.
"Words," said Jon, "were said."
Every been faced with a seemingly insoluble networking problem, only to find the solution sitting in a conference room, eating cookies? Or were you the person that triggered the pagers with an innocent "I wonder what this cable does?" Tell all with an email to [11]On Call . ®
Get our [12]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/Tag/on-call
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YvYkxOd0nRpOJYWTVgSNdgAAAEY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YvYkxOd0nRpOJYWTVgSNdgAAAEY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/05/on_call/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/29/on_call/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/22/on_call/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/15/on_call/
[11] mailto:oncall@theregister.com
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Maybe the effort of lugging the luggable* had drained all the blood from his brain.
*Those who experienced the era of the luggables aren't going to complain about even the heaviest laptop.
They were considered quite Compaqt at the time...
My first computer was a KayPro II. Luggable? Perhaps. Still, pleased to have it.
Best wishes,
Bob
ISDN
Back in the day when ISDN was popular I was tasked with putting some audiovisual kit in one of a bank's main offices in Northants.
On the top floor the C-levels sat along with the videoconferencing room.
To be fair the kit was pretty impressive - it was one of the early cameras that could track a person as they moved around a room and it all went via a mixing deck and amplifiers and into a PC that was connected via ISDN to the videoconferencing platform.
I had zero knowledge of any of this kit but it went in fairly simply and test calls were made - all successfully. I tried to find someone to sign it off but no one was around (or wanted to, from what I recall), so a call to my manager who said to have one more go then leave.
A few days later, same manager was on the phone shouting at me for a) leaving it in a non-working state and b) where was the sign off?
Hey ho. Back I went.
When I arrived, we tested it and it worked.
Then suddenly one of the directors came in to ask if I couldn't sort out her connection while I was stood around doing nothing else ( ! ). So, since the video conferencing stuff was working I decided I'd have a look.
Turned out she also used an ISDN line to get external connectivity and apparently it wouldn't initiate a connection, but when we walked into her office to check, of course it connected straight away.
Ok, well come get me if it stops working.
Back in the videoconferencing room, it suddenly couldn't get connectivity.
Hang on... yep, her office and the VC room shared the one ISDN connection so when one had initiated the connection the other was left without one.
Never got an apology but I *did* get a sign-off before I left.
" Either way, Compaq's heftiest and finest remained resolutely offline. "
I'm not sure the loose cannon needed to be body shamed like that.
We had a complete technophobe of a marketing director, back in around 2002, who never used his computer. He'd always come to us to dictate emails (despite none of us being secretaries), and when we asked him why, he complained that his computer was really old and slow. And to be fair, it was the last 486 in the building, so we ordered him a shiny new Pentium 3.
When it arrived, I took out his old computer, and he took the opportunity to rearrange his office a bit. Meaning that the new computer was now too far from the network port, and I needed to get a new cable. We didn't have any of the right length in stock, so I ordered some new ones, and told him that I'd be back to install the cable in the next couple of days.
Things happened, there was a weekend, and it was 6 weeks before he came back to me to say that his new computer didn't work... SIX WEEKS!
At a casual glance...
...a thinnet BNC network terminator looks almost exactly like a BNC -> RCA adapter - especially if you have one of those little protective dust covers over the end of it. Back in the early 90s when I was in 6th form us poor comp-sci A level students (there were about 5 of us total, we had a rota) were often left in charge of the computing suite at lunch time so the actual staff could get some much needed rest, and the younger kids could use the computers to play games on.
If ever things got a bit much, or if we were particularly hung over (it was the 90s, no one would ID you as long as you didn't cause any trouble) we'd replace the network terminator for a nice quiet afternoon. "Sorry lads, network's down. Nothing we can do about it until the teachers get back and let us into the server room." Without access to the shared drive full of games most of the kids would just leave.
Sounds like the Loose Cannon was a bit too thicknet to be allowed a computer