[gregholmberg]

In the 90s, I would sometimes trip over ethernet cables that had been strung between server racks, across an aisle.

Will this be the decade where I get to experience being struck by falling routers and switches, far from any data center?

(EDIT: Simply remarking on novelty of problem and upward growth of network. No criticism of any firm implied or intended.)

[robin_reala]

I took down an AS/400 server once by tripping over two Type 1 token ring cables[1] that had been plugged together in the middle of a walkway. No-one ever owned up to that setup.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IBM_hermaphroditic_connect...

[jbigelow76]

My hands down favorite Dilbert comic ever was a token ring joke:

http://dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/...

[jgrahamc]

Given that it was token ring that might have isolated the AS/400 but the MAU would have healed the ring and everything would have been fine.

[robin_reala]

Oh god, I’d blocked from my mind the pain of ring dropping. We had MAUs for the servers, but for some reason ran the rest of the office on CAT-5 TR gear from Madge without any MAUs. Just took someone to unplug and that section of the office would lose network connectivity.

[jgrahamc]

:-)

I used to work for Madge. Why were you running without MAUs?

[robin_reala]

Possibly the more important question is ‘Why were you running a token ring network in 1999?’! I have no idea why our network was structured like that, this was my first job in the industry and I was a lowly PC tech at the time. If I had to guess, the word that springs to mind is ‘legacy’.

[incision]

>'Possibly the more important question is ‘Why were you running a token ring network in 1999?’!'

I've worked on a token ring network as recently as 2006. Thankfully, part of the project was migrating off of it.

[sk5t]

Eh, I was a user on a token ring university network almost that late, and it was superior to the congestion-crippled ethernet networks at more 'advanced' institutions. That said, I definitely didn't enjoy all the practice I got in building token ring-enabled Linux kernels.

[trhway]

>Will this be the decade where I get to experience being struck by falling routers and switches,

especially if the falling equipment identifies you as the softest landing spot in the vicinity (thus providing for lesser damage to / higher chances of the equipment survival :)

> far from any data center?

until off course it is the air borne (near-space) datacenter itself.

[partomniscient]

The children's story will have to be revised.

Chicken little decided to go for a walk outside and was killed when the internet fell on him. The sky continued unabated.