A technology retrospective recounts the history of Token Ring, the IBM-backed networking standard introduced on October 15, 1985, which competed with Ethernet through the 1980s and 1990s. The piece explains that while Token Ring avoided collisions by passing a single token between systems and handled network saturation well, it required all cards to run at the same speed and was ultimately outcompeted by cheaper, open-standard Ethernet equipment.
dfarq.homeip.net
· 2026-10-16
On this date in 1980, DEC, Intel, and Xerox jointly published version 1.0 of the Ethernet specification, known as the DIX standard, built on experimental work done earlier at Xerox PARC. The open specification let any hardware vendor implement Ethernet, starting with coaxial cabling at 10 Mbps, and it has since evolved through BNC connectors, RJ45 and twisted-pair cabling, and speeds now reaching 800 Gbps+ in modern data centers.
tomshardware.com
· 2026-09-30
A hobbyist has restored a PDP-11/83 system built around a Mentec M11 single-board CPU, two interconnected Q22 bus chassis, and a mix of DEC and Emulex peripheral controllers. The machine runs 2.11BSD Unix and is actively serving a live status page showing its own memory, disk, and system metrics in real time. Classic peripherals including magnetic tape drives and serial terminals remain part of the working setup.
pdp1173.com
· 2026-09-21
Yugoslav manufacturer Iskra Delta built its Partner microcomputer in the 1980s by assembling widely available components rather than designing everything in-house, following the industry shift pioneered by minicomputers and cemented by the IBM PC. The report traces the Partner's case specifically to a UK design origin, illustrating how even locally branded machines relied on components and designs sourced from elsewhere.
racunalniski-muzej.si
· 2026-09-07
GoKawiil