Nothin’ But Net
By
“So you see! There's
no end
To the things you might know,
Depending how far beyond Zebra you go!” – Dr. Seuss from “On Beyond Zebra,”
Random House 1955
I’m sitting in a hotel in London preparing for
PLASA, one of the biggest trade shows of our industry. As I look out the window
I can see Buckingham Palace, Harrods, and countless red brick apartments with
gable roofs. I’m going through my e-mail, the ones that don’t say “Wicked
screensaver,” “Details,” “Thank you!” or “Your application” in the subject
line, and I’m picking up on a common thread. Among the many product
announcements and invitations to PLASA, I see a number of references to ACN,
Ethernet, and networking.
I’ve been writing computer code since 1974 when I took
a FORTRAN programming class in high school. I’ve since learned to program in
assembly code, dBase, and Foxbase, and I’ve dabbled in several other
programming languages. In 1982 someone asked me to set up their brand new IBM
286 desktop computer, and I installed the DOS operating system along with a few
other programs that were available at the time. Now I have five computers at
home, three desktops and two laptops, three of which are running Windows XP and
two of which are Macs. In short, I’ve been very involved with computers my
entire adult life.
But up until fairly recently, I have successfully
avoided having any real working knowledge of networking.
My first encounter with a networked computer was in
college, when we had a dumb terminal in the engineering building that was
networked with the mainframe in the basement somewhere in the admin building.
Calling it a “dumb” terminal is not a judgment. Rather, it is a type of system
with no intelligence; it was simply a keyboard and monitor. It could send
instructions to the mainframe computer and receive and display information
relayed back to it. The user simply had to request attention from the mainframe
and in due time it would respond and reply.
The next network system I encountered wasn’t until
several years later when I went to work for High End Systems. We had hired a
computer consultant, a friend of someone in the company, who had knowledge of
something called “Ethernet.”
Up until that time, we used one computer. It was a
Radio Shack TRS-80 with a 13” floppy drive. That’s not a typo; the floppy disks
were bigger than a 33 1/3 LP. For those of you who were born since the advent
of the CD, an LP is a big, flat vinyl disk, usually black, that had grooves
carved into it which could reproduce the music of old-time musicians like the
Rolling Stones and Aerosmith. Well, some things are still the same, but trust
me, back then needles were used for more than just tattoos.
We used to write up our sales orders by hand with
pencil and paper, and at the end of the day we would hand them over to our
fearless leader, who would then input them into the computer and store them on
the 13” floppy disk.
One day, our fearless leader became tired of
hunting and pecking the orders into the computer and decided that we should all
have our own computer. So we bought several PC chassis, motherboards, hard
drives, keyboards and monitors (amber monochrome, of course), and in one of the
most amusing periods in the history of the company, several of the sales staff
assembled their own computer. Some of them even learned how to use a
screwdriver that day – lefty loosey, righty tighty. Then our computer genius
showed up with a ladder and several spools of cable and interconnected all of
our computers together. They were all linked to what he called a file server.
Once the system was all set up, we happily went
about our business typing in orders as they came in. I was ignorantly bliss
about the interconnection of the computers. All I knew was that our hired gun
had recently attended a course to become a certified Novell network
administrator and it was there that he learned about Ethernet. That’s more than
I needed to know to get my work done.
For several years I was content to know that our
local area network was a microcosm of the larger Internet, which eventually
phased out all the bulletin boards that we used to access through a dial-up
connection.
Through the years, I have come to the gradual realization that I would
one day have to shed my cocoon of ignorance that was wrapped around me like a
blanket. I gave in when I wanted to share my cable modem with all the computers
in my house. So I went to CompUSA and bought a wireless hub and I set out to
set up my own LAN.
What I learned right off was that there is a lot to
learn. The physical layer is easy enough, though there are many different
configurations for different applications. But the software layer is something
else altogether. Not only is there a lot to learn about configuration,
security, and sharing resources, but it seems that if you speak to five
different people you will get five different answers. I spoke to tech support
several times before I finally reached one who seemed to know more than the
others. He helped me resolved the problem, but not before reaching record levels
of frustration and angst.
Walking the floor at PLASA, not only did I see a
number of new products related to networking, but it’s easy to find people,
like me, who are interested in talking and sharing information about
networking. I had a twenty minute discussion with Gary
If you’re like me and have avoided learning about
networking up until now, then your days are numbered. We’re surrounded by armed
and dangerous networking technology and they have endless reinforcements on the
way. We have no choice but to hang out the white flag and surrender to the technology.
We are in the infant stages of the launch of ACN, which uses TCP/IP and
Ethernet as the basis of its configuration. It looks as if multi-user
programming will become more and more common as systems grow in size and
complexity, meaning more systems will be networked. And as digital lighting and
the integration of media servers into the lighting system takes root, the need
for networking and knowledgeable network administrators will continue to grow.
Even if you aren’t involved in networking at work, chances are you will
eventually set up a network at home when your kids want to get on the internet.
Don’t suffer the slings and arrows of hostile
technology. Take the time to learn about networking before you find yourself a
stranger in a strange land.
Get on the
network and e-mail the author at rcadena<at>swamicandela.com.