Building An Apple Talk Network Using Phone Net
| Field | Networking |
| Went Obsolete | A long time ago |
| Made Obsolete By | Ethernet |
| Knowledge Assumed | Ability to plug RJ-45 connectors |
| When useful | When Macintosh was rare, and sexy |
Phone net was a networking system introduced by Farallon (later Netopia), that allowed one to build an AppleTalk? network over off-the-shelf phone wiring, rather than the expensive wiring sold by Apple. It was the coolest way to create 230.4 Kbaud networks--but was made obsolete when Apple introduce Ethernet, allowing you to run Appletalk over Ethernet, at a small fraction of a nominal 10 Mbs.
EDIT (Wormwood): Even when Ethernet was first released, the convenience of using phone wiring instead of laying new wire for Ethernet made it common for older buildings (like the dorms at my college) to continue to use this for a few years. I remember having to use "Gatorboxes" to allow Mac to connect to the Internet at large, since the only LAN support in my dorm was via LocalTalk? instead of a direct connection to the "backbone."