[OLUG] Network Collisions

[Dave Burchell]

brian at cbiowa.com says:

> 	If there is a collision wouldn't that mean the packet has to be resent
> by the network cards?

Yes, but that's all part of the plan!

Ethernet is a twisted and beautiful plan of managed chaos, the sort of
scheme only an evil genius could think up.  (I guess that makes 3com
founder and ethernet inventor Robert Metcalfe an evil genius, but I mean
it in a good way.)

I recommend the book _Internetworking with TCP/IP_ by Douglas E. Comer
(Vol. 1, section 2.4 of the second edition, ISBN 0-13-468505-9) as a
great place to learn about ethernet.  Comer also has a more general book
called _Computer Networks and Internets_ (ISBN 0130836176) which is even
better for novices.

In general, you shouldn't try to reduce your number of collisions
unless you start seeing network problems, such as poor performance.

I'll be happy to give a talk on LANs at a future OLUG meeting if there
is demand.  (We can even play "ethernet" and "token ring" with humans to
illustrate the concepts; sound like fun? :-)


-- 
Dave Burchell                                          40.49'N, 96.41'W
Free your mind and your software will follow.              402-467-1619
http://incolor.inetnebr.com/burchell/                  burchell at acm.org     

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