Picked up four inexpensive 48-port gigabit layer-3 switches (Nortel/Avaya 5510-48T) to upgrade my network infrastructure, one is acting as the backbone switch in the house, and the three others (office, workshop, and entertainment center) are linked to it with dual gigabit LACP links. The network has been reconfigured some to save power, turns out these Avaya switches draw about 95 watts at idle. I am down to using two of them, the main backbone one, and one in the workshop. I have pulled a bunch more cat5e, and one OM4 LC fiber cable up to the office and removed that switch entirely, and for the entertainment center I have bought a small 8-port low-power managed switch.
Workshop switch
New dual-gang keystone in office with 1xLC OM4 Fiber, 5xCat5e, 1xCat5 split to 4xRJ11
Office switch – retired
Also I have pretty well completed integration of the new Avaya Definity G3 system. It’s now running all the telephones in my home and workshop. I’m utilizing 2x (out of 4x) Cat6 lines to provide 8 extensions to the house, and a pre-existing two pair cable to extend my Centurylink CO trunk, and “Door Phone” call-box CO trunk to the Definity from the house. I am definitely outgrowing the cabling capacity to the house from the workshop, I need to add at least one more Cat6 cable, though I am toying with the idea of running a 25-pair cat3 telecom cable, then I could reclaim the 2x Cat6 cables I’m using, and upgrade to 4 connection LACP data link to the workshop.
Definity installed under bench in workshop.
66 blocks cabled to Definity. (3rd block has been added since photo)
Punching down amphenol cable to 66-block
Completed 66-block
Playing with the Definity using my Lucent Max 900 terminal
Spent the past weekend “geeking” out with my friend Ryan P and our friend Garrett of Bithistory.org. Ryan P and I drove from Minneapolis MN to eastern WI to meet up and spend the weekend playing with, and sorting through, retro computers and parts with Garrett.
I found this Teletype for sale in an antique store in Duluth, Minnesota.
Seems to function in local mode, I need to get the cabling figured out and try to get it working in online mode.
UPDATE: 9/2018: I was able to get this talking to a PC with the right combination of cables and null modem adapter, it was sending/receiving at 300baud. However I need to source a ribbon for this, the old one is dried up, and fell apart when I tried to open it up to re-ink it.
I spent some time last weekend cleaning up the cabling mess for our telephones and dialup server, now it’s not such a disaster. I ran all the telephone/modem connections to a 66 block rather than just hanging it all off the front of the phone switch.
12 of the analog phone lines off the PBX switch run into my house (via 3 of the 4 CAT5 cables in my conduit) for my various vintage telephones throughout the house.
4 lines are dedicated to the dialup modem server (via a call group).
4 more to my workbench for telephone/modem testing.
4 more to my PC display wall for the various PCs and terminals to dial into my modem server.
Network wise
The final CAT5 cable from the house feeds into a 5-port gigabit switch mounted below the PBX, that switch then feeds
Netgear 16-port gigabit switch on the workbench
Cisco 24-port 10/100 switch (with gigabit uplink) for the PC display wall
CCTV security camera
Netgear 600N wireless AP and 4-port 10/100 switch which feeds
The Dial-up PC
a 2nd CCTV security camera
Linksys PAP2 SIP Analog Telephone Adapter that feeds dial-tone from my Asterisk PBX in the house to the AT&T Merlin Legend PBX here.
This is now the single oldest piece of computer gear that I own, you can check out the page dedicated to it, which will be updated as I get it working, and learn more about it, but for now here’s a preview of the photos.
Carterfone Modem
Carterfone Modem with Northern Electric G3 handset from 554 wall phone
Carterfone Modem lid closed on G3 handset.
Carterfone Modem next to “modern” 56K modem
Carterfone Modem next to “modern” 56K modem
Power transformer, bridge rectifier, and filter capacitor.
Current machines on display in my museum, this is not my complete collection, there are some machines that are in various states of disrepair, or I just do not have room to currently display. Not all these displays are currently hooked up, there is no power on the laptop/iMac wall, so they must be moved to the workbench to be hooked up and used.
Apple ][
Apple ][+
Apple //e
Apple //c with Apple Modem 1200 and Cortelco 2500 telephone
Apple IIc+
Apple IIgs
Macintosh Beige G3
Macintosh Quadra 950
Macintosh SE/30
Macintosh Plus
Compaq Portable III
Compaq Portable II
Compaq Portable
Macintosh PowerBook Duo 230
Macintosh PowerBook 160
Macintosh PowerBook 100
Zeos Meridian 400c
Zeos 386 notebook
Tandy 1100FD
Dell Inspiron 2500
IBM ThinkPad X41 Tablet
IBM ThinkPad T43
Toshiba T1600
Epson 4SLC/33
HP Omnibook 300 and HP 100LX
Toshiba Satellite T2130cs
Compaq Armada 1700
Netpliance iOpener
Mini-ITX converted Mac Plus
Macintosh SE
Compaq Presario CDTV520
iMac Bondi
iMac Indigo
iMac Snow
Lucent Max 900 terminal dialed into my linux box via 14.4 modem.
I had a bit more room for shelving in my workshop/museum and decided to make the most of every inch I could and added an additional 2 feet to my display shelving.
I spent most of last weekend fighting with my Linux box trying to get dial in access working, after days of fighting I finally figure out the onboard serial port wasn’t working, works fine with a FTDI USB adapter, anyways YAY it works!!!
I now have 3 external USR 56k modems running on here for 3 simultaneous logins, with a 4th modem waiting on a power supply which will soon go into service.
My vintage computer workshop is in a detached building, so I have run conduit and cat5 cabling from my house. I ran 4x Cat5e cables to start but also left a pulling line in place if I ever need to pull more through the conduit. The cables terminate at patch panels on both ends.
