Background
Too many kids, and a fair share of old farts, think the world runs on cat-5. It just ain't so! From the first smoke-signals and drumbeats of prehistory, to modern muti-gigabit optical links, there's a lot more to communication than just Ethernet frames riding twisted pair. This contest aims to celebrate the long and varied history of communication.
How to Enter
- Bring obscure, working hardware.
- Set it up so datagrams take a long, silly path from one end to the other.
- Document your setup in this wiki.
- Demonstrate your setup to a judge.
Scoring
Your setup earns points for each functional hop. String together more crazy gear for a higher score and a better chance of winning! Ethernet may be used, it just doesn't help your score.
Media Type |
Points |
10/100/1000baseT, 802.11a/b/g/n |
0 |
Obscure Ethernet: 100baseVG-AnyLan, 10base2, 802.11(no suffix) etc |
1/2 |
Non-Ethernet wired: Token ring, RS232, T1, AppleTalk, etc |
2 |
Non-Ethernet wireless, using commercial gear: RangeLAN, Ricochet, Terabeam, HamRadio TNCs, etc |
3 |
Wireless, using gear of your own construction: Lasermodems, HamRadio TNC you built, etc |
4 |
Mechanical, using gear of your own construction. |
5 |
Barbed Wire bonus: Use barbed wire anywhere in project for extra point. |
1 |
Laser bonus: Carry data using modulated coherent light for extra point. |
1 |
Each media type only counts once. For instance, you can't just bring a massive stack of token ring routers and score a bunch of points. But data in HDLC over T1 counts separately from data in 56k in a voice channel riding on a T1. Got it?
For homebrewers: It's okay to just pass data in one direction, so you don't have to build two of everything.
Some common sense rules:
- Don't do anything that would damage the hotel, set off smoke alarms, etc.
- No unwilling vertebrates. Robo-roaches are probably okay. When in doubt, ask the judge.
- Human interaction is discouraged but permitted. Feeding paper from a printer to a scanner should be done robotically if possible, for example.
Judging
NEW THIS YEAR: Your setup must be documented in order to be judged. Refer to HelpOnEditing/SubPages and create a page for your entry. List it in this table:
Team |
Entry |
Ready for judging? |
Sample, created by Myself |
of course not! |
|
tesseract et al. |
not yet |
|
James T aka Unknown_Entity |
For judging, just flag down the judge (Myself, aka Nate) and demonstrate your setup, being prepared to explain each step. Passing some intelligible information will be required to win, though there may be a prize for "honorable meltdown".
Prizes
Once again EAE Sales has sponsored Anything but Ethernet with not one but TWO professional-grade soldering stations. I (myself) own one and can vouch for how incredibly easy soldering becomes with the right tools. Also, http://www.serialwombat.com/ Serial Wombat is once again providing prize packs, nifty PC interface devices. Do you miss having a parallel port to interface to the outside world? Serial Wombats do all that and so much more.
If you know a company who'd like to promote their product (such as versatile networking gear) by contributing a prize, please visit http://www.notacon.org/sponsorship.html and get in touch.