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To: tacticalogic
Back in the 80s IBM mainframes used Token Ring local area networks. Terminals were 3270, over SNA or SDLC. If you wanted to talk to them, you made adapters for those protocols.

Apple was capable of using Token Ring protocols as well. There were adaptors for those as well. However, they were not as common.

40 posted on 08/03/2015 9:17:14 AM PDT by Swordmaker ( This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users continue...)
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To: Swordmaker
Apple was capable of using Token Ring protocols as well. There were adaptors for those as well. However, they were not as common.

There weren't a lot of PC's or mainframes using it back then either, mostly due to facilities not being wired for it yet. 3270 terminals were replaced with PCs using 3270 coax adapters, so the existing SNA network and coax cabling could be used to connect them to the mainframe. As facilities were re-wired, token ring adapters replaced the 3270 adapters. In either case, you also needed 3270 terminal emulation software running on the PC to make it work. IBM had that, and it wasn't too long before you had your choice of 3270, token ring, and terminal emulation software from third party vendors as well. What did Apple have?

47 posted on 08/03/2015 9:43:00 AM PDT by tacticalogic
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