Another network protocol I wanted to exhibit someday was IBM's Token Ring. - Bill Degnan
A few S-100 companies supported ARCnet. Boards were available from Compupro and a few others companies. I've collected a few ARCnet devices and S-100 cards. But this stuff is outside my digital EE experience. And if I got one of these cards running, what would it talk to? Other than my showing interest, my point is that there may be interest from INexperienced persons who own vintage computers which MIGHT operate on these networks, for purposes of an exhibit or a repair workshop. Those persons (me) would need some handholding and known-good network traffic. So a consideration for a VCF-East exhibit, would be to string cabling behind several exhibit-tables; rather than one table with these puppies sitting next to each other. I think a "grand exhibit" is a lot of work and coordination; whereas just connecting adjacent exhibits requires less planning. Similar thoughts for any VCF or other-site workshop. Another consideration, as I mentioned is "whom do I talk to?" That MIGHT suggest, construction of some modern device (Arduino or RaspPi based) to act as a peer. NOthing fancy, just enough to validate a *real* networking device. While some of us have several node-computers to toy with, many individuals may only have one computer or one kind or one network interface. Of course Arduinos and RAspPis are common. So I think, if a handful of people say they are prepared to support a particularly obscure networking protocol, and are willing to show up a few times to help others become "nodes", and they can point to some resources like I suggested - some kind of workshops or exhibits could be done. A year out from VCF is *reasonable* to gather such interest, as it may take time to gather or buy resources and make them work, and then make them work *together*. I've just provided a strategy - who has the interest and hardware? For instance Bill Degnan has found several people are interested and have supported by trade, Novell Netware. Even I have a few Lantastic network cards for IBM-PC (saved because of the Z180 chip on them). Are they ARCnet? I dunno....? But I think Bill Degnan may have a deal, if those who responded wanna work together. Herb "no net" Johnson -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net