Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire-based Madge Networks Ltd has launched the Smart 16 Ringnode, a sub-$300 Token Ring network adaptor for the branch office market. The offering runs at 16Mbps only and comes in shielded or unshielded twisted pair wiring versions. According to Madge, the rationale behind this is the nature of branch offices themselves. Most of these are virgin local area network sites with no legacy problems, but do have bottom-line cost pressures, argues the company. Because the sites are new, Token Ring installations are invariably going to be 16Mbps, and most likely use unshielded twisted pair cabling, or at least not be mixed-media, obviating the need for a switchable board, says Madge. Our customer research indicates that a key issue at the branch-level is the price, says a spokesman. Users do not want to buy any overhead that they are not going to use. According to the company, by producing separate shielded and unshielded twisted pair versions, the boards are less complex, halving manufacturing costs. This, says Madge, brings the Smart 16 Ring-node’s price into parity with high-end Ethernet boards, and removes the Token Ring price barrier to the branch office market. The product incorporates the company’s Smart LAN Support Software 4.2. This comprises Fastmac Plus, designed to optimise data throughput from the Texas Instruments Inc Token Ring chip set to 16Mbps wire speed with frames of 48 bytes or more; and Smart Software, said to enable users to execute two protocols simultaneously on the same interface board. It also features 128Kb of on-board RAM to provide buffering space for data frames; AT bus support; and software-configured parameters, says Madge. The Smart 16 Ringnode is available now; both the shielded and unshielded twisted pair versions cost $300.
