Netopia
Farallon, later renamed Netopia, was a computer networking company headquartered in Berkeley, and subsequently Emeryville, California, that produced a wide variety of products including bridges, repeaters and switches, and in their later Netopia incarnation, modems, routers, gateways, and Wi-Fi devices. The company also produced the NBBS (Netopia Broadband Server Software), as well as the Timbuktu remote administration software and MacRecorder, the first audio capture and manipulation products, later sold to Macromedia. The company was founded in 1986 and changed its name to Netopia in 1998.[citation needed] Farallon originated several notable technologies, including:
- PhoneNet, an implementation of AppleTalk over plain ("Cat-3") telephone wiring or, more commonly, EIA-TIA 568A/B structured cabling systems. Many versions of the product were produced, but the original product was a commercialized version of a kit developed and produced by BMUG, the Berkeley Macintosh Users Group in 1986.[1][2][3][4][5]
- The StarController, a line of LocalTalk and Ethernet bridges and switches released in 1988 which integrated directly with EIA-TIA 568A/B structured cabling systems.[6]
- EtherWave, an ADB-powered three-port bridge in a dongle form-factor which looked something like a manta ray. The two external ports were 10Base-T Ethernet and the ADB pigtail spoke an overclocked 690kbps version of LocalTalk. This served both to allow devices without expansion busses (commonly early Macintosh computers and LaserWriter printers) to connect directly to Ethernet networks, and also to allow the daisy-chaining of multiple devices from a single Ethernet switch or bridge port.[7][8][9][10][11] Later versions used Apple's "AAUI" version of the Attachment Unit Interface to achieve full 10mbps host connections.[12]
- AirDock, an ADB-to-IrDA gateway which allowed devices with LocalTalk ports to communicate on IrDA infrared wireless networks.[13]
Netopia was acquired by Motorola in the first quarter of 2007.[14]
ISPs known to use Netopia modems include:
- AT&T in the United States
- Sonic.net in the United States
- Covad in the United States
- eircom in Ireland
- Swisscom in Switzerland
- NextGenTel in Norway
- France Télécom, Cegetel RSS, B3G Telecom, Nerim, Easynet, Claranet, Magic Online in France
References
- ^ "PhoneNET User's Guide" (PDF). Farallon Computing. 1986.
- ^ "Farallon PhoneNET". Vintage Computing Wiki. Retrieved 23 November 2021.
- ^ "Berkeley Macintosh Users Group". Retrieved 23 November 2021.
BMUG co-founder Reese M. Jones created a low-cost variant of AppleTalk networking hardware to connect BMUG's computers in Eshleman Hall to the backbone network of the campus. Initially called 'BMUGnet', Reese patented it and developed it into PhoneNET. Reese then founded Farallon Computing to market hardware developed at Berkeley, such as PhoneNet and MacRecorder.
- ^ US Expired 5003579A, Reese M. Jones, "System for connecting computers via telephone lines", published 1991-03-26, issued 1991-03-26
- ^ "BMUG Lab in UCB Eshleman Hall". 32by32. 4 March 1986.
- ^ "Farallon PhoneNET StarController". Vintage Computing Wiki.
- ^ Knight, Daniel (17 June 2014). "Farallon EtherWave FAQ". LowEndMac.
- ^ "EtherWave Adapters". Farallon, a division of Proxim. 17 August 2000.
- ^ Mk.558. "Classic Mac Networking". Retrieved 23 November 2021.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ "AirDock with Open Transport". Farallon. 24 May 1998.
- ^ "Farallon AirDock". Vintage Computer Wiki. Retrieved 23 November 2021.
- ^ "Farallon EtherWave AAUI Transceiver". Vintage Computing Wiki. Retrieved 23 November 2021.
- ^ "AirDock". Retrieved 23 November 2021.
- ^ "Motorola Acquires Netopia To Beef Up Its Connected Home Strategy". Retrieved 2014-01-06.
External links
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