The CSMA/CD

Join us for a game of D&D

I just wanted to note that myself (Claude), Morris and Horrace will be playing D&D on the Internet tonight. You are all welcome to join us. To clear up any confusion, this D&D stands for "Dungeons and Dragoons". It's a MMORPG set in the American War of Independence. My character (who has just acquired the 'wield dual muskets skill') is Sergeant at Arms, Timmothy Matheson of the Plymouth Militia. Our characters are currently immobile and face a tough challenge after our general failed his 'bypass pointless bureaucracy' roll.

There has been some request for a wide screen version of the CSMACD wall paper. We checked the source footage that Morris acquired and there is indeed more content sitting behind the black bars:

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Guatemalan Adventures & First Ever Photo of IP Packets

I have some very exciting news for you today that is simply mind-blowing. However, first I must apologise for the lack of updates in the very exciting world of the CSMACD.

It all started shortly before Christmas. I was on my way to Guatemala to install a voice over DECnet solution as part of a working holiday. Unfortunately the project fell through and I ended up having to pick coffee beans to afford my flight home.

Here is a photo of me standing on the edge of the valley where we have the coffee plantation:

No doubt you are waiting for the exciting news. Morris has managed to take the first ever live photos of IP packets. These photos were taken using an electron scanning microscope. The subject was a KupiTech layer 2.5 MLPS switch using CAT 7.5 UTT cable. The data itself is IP encapsulated CCS7MACD frames.

Some members of our team are in awe of the sheer majesty of the packets. Its for this reason that we have decided to make the ground-breaking photos available for download and commissioning them to your desktop.

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Note: Desktop images are probably not compatible with the C64 GEOS environment...

Tear in the ATM Switching Fabric

A few weeks ago we experienced a large amount of dropped traffic over our main WAN link to the head office. With the help of Morris and our vendor, we isolated this to a faulty ATM fabric and swapped it out. However, it wasn't until today that we found out the real cause of the problem.

We sent the faulty fabric back to the vendor for further diagnosis. They believe that the fabric was worn down by faulty ATM cells.Eventually, the friction generated by the cells had ripped a hole right through the fabric itself. Data was quite literally being dropped out of the switch. Our vendor has sent us some photos of the torn fabric which they took using a electron microscope:


Figure 1: Normal Healthy ATM Fabric	Figure 2: Torn Faulty ATM Fabric

With the help of our vendors electron microscope we plan to study some of our ATM cells up close. Hopefully, the photos of the cells will show up the cause of the underlying problems. Until then, we just have to cross our fingers and hope that the new fabric holds together.

CAT 7.5 UTT Preview

Those of you who have been following the CSMACD closely will realise that CAT7.5 UTT forms an integral part of our IPoV solution. However, apart from the revolutionary 'parity' wire, most of the details of CAT7.5 have been kept a closely guarded secret.

That is until now...

Ask yourself this: "What has been sadly lacking in data cables to date?" Sure, your average cable is the right length and can be expected function well under most conditions. However, this they just don't deliver on one particular issue...

Networking cables taste horible!

The CSMACD Catagory 7.5 UTT cable comes in seven differnt flavours, enough to satify even the most fussy network engineer. We know that you are curious, so here is a little "taste" of things to come...

CAT7.5 UTT - Taste sample

(You will need a taste compatable browser - click here to search for a plugin)

IPoV Live Test - World First

Having implemented the below CCS7MACD network, today we established the worlds first IPoV call. The results were not a good as expected but we have decided to upload them to the public for general comment:

Download IPoV Test (MP3 - 1,152Kb)

What we require is some feedback from our pool of readers on how we can improve IPoV as a concept and even the CCS7MACD protocol. Please feel free to contribute and post your comments...

UTT In-Depth

The current development in the unshielded twisted triplet (UTT) cable is going well. There has been some confusion on how it is all structured, so I decided to put together this overview.

Standard unshielded twisted pair (UTP) has two conducting wires that send data:

Figure 1: Unshielded Twisted Pair

The pairs are twisted together; one carries a positive DC current, while the other carries a negative DC current. This helps neutralise the magnetic field created by the current, so that it does not induce current in other nearby pairs.

Unfortunately, the twisting and positive and negative currents do nothing to stop frame collisions. This is where UTT is superior:

Figure 2: Unshielded Twisted Triplet

By implementing a parity wire, this cable allow s a signal to literally swerve off its current wire and avoid a fatal collision. Notice that the corners of the parity wire are banked and have extra width. This allows the signal to achieve drift.

UTT is still a prototype but investors have displayed keen interest and a contract for funding is under negotiation. We are looking at launching our first UTT category 7.5 cable at the end of next quarter.

Leveraging the Power of CCS7MACD

Today we put the finishing touches on our IPoV-CCS7MA/CD test bed. It is still proof of concept, however, we are confident enough to present the design to the community.

The diagram pretty much speaks for itself. Unfortunately, our European partners couldn't get hold of any holographic disc backup systems and had to settle for Blue Mamos II.

One thing we are currently working on is improving the majesty of the CCS7MA/CD frames. Currently, we are just jamming them down the phone in a haphazard manner. We are looking at developing an enhanced algorithm that will neatly fold the CCS7MA/CD frame, tag it and stack it neatly to avoid data creasing.