Still Crazy

980004 - 8228 MAU and ICS cable. TokenRing, one of "The Seven Wonders" of PS/55 junk market.

Ok, there were so many used PS/55s with TokenRing Adapter installed but NO ICS cables nor 8228 MAU were found in Akihabara. I could not imagine how the ICS cables and 8228 looked like. As a M.A.D, I had dreamed about 8228 and ICS cables to build my own LAN. But so far I could not get any Token devices except adapters. May be ICS cables had been cut off at adapter sides and only PS/55 system units were collected and sent to junk market when some big companies replaced their systems. No idea about 8228. There were so many TokenRing adapters so there might be 1/8 of 8228s at least. But, I had never seen one in any PC surplus shops or street junk shops. The fact that NO 8228 nor ICS cables but plenty of TokenRing Adapters in Akihabara was/is one of the seven wonders of PS/55 (at least for me).

ICS cables

A friend of mine in Nagano prefecture got some patch cables for Ring-in /Ring-out connection. He asked me to buy some D-sub 9 pin connectors for him in return of 2 patch cables. What a nice proposal! I bought some connectors for him and sent it. I received 2 patch cables from him. One was about 10m long and the other was very l-o-n-g. I made 2x 5m length ICS cables. Kept long one for future usage. Thus I got 2 cables for TokenRing connection.

8228 MAU

One day I got a mail from my master of MCA. He said he had gotten 8228s and he could part one to me for free except shipping. Who could refuse such an offer. Yoda sent me a 8228, a lightning sword of TokenRinger, to me. Though the sword had some rusty spots here and there, it was completely functional.

Thus I could get mysterious items. I was reedy to be a TokenRinger.

First stage of my TokenRing network:
5580 / OS2 Warp Connect, 5560 / Win95, 5551/Win95. 5580 acted as File server.
NetBEUI was used as LAN protocol. TCP/IP was difficult for me.


Sep 2002

Now, 8228 with rusty spots still sits on a shelf with 5 ICS cables and 3 ICS/RJ45 filters. I now also have a small MAU made of Sumitomo with 4x RJ45 ports which will be used when I may leave my home again in future. 8230 type-2 CAU/RJ45 LAM may sit here for a while waiting for it's new home. No enough space to keep them. Also got some ICS cable NIB for JY100 (about $1.00) per cable (some of them were parted to my friends.) Mr. S reported he found many of Sumitomo made 8228s sold very cheap in Yokohama in 2001. I myself saw IBM genuine 8228s sold NIB but they had unnecessary "0" printed on their price tags.

Now this moment, what I really want to have is "8229-002 (Token/Ether Bridge)" or any types of 8229 if it's has Token/Ether bridging unit in it's slot. Occasionally it comes up on eBay but most of 8229 seen there are 8229-001 or 003. Sigh...

Content created and/or collected by:
Louis F. Ohland, Peter H. Wendt, David L. Beem, William R. Walsh, Tatsuo Sunagawa, Tomáš Slavotínek, Jim Shorney, Tim N. Clarke, Kevin Bowling, and many others.

Ardent Tool of Capitalism is maintained by Tomáš Slavotínek.
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