PhoneNET

PhoneNET was a line of LocalTalk transceiver dongles and hubs developed by Farallon to allow early AppleTalk networks to be connected through ordinary telephone cables with jacks.

History
The PhoneNET method of using telephone lines was originally invented in 1985 as "BMUGnet" by Reese M. Jones of the Berkeley Macintosh Users Group, who then founded Farallon Computing to commercialize it. The patent was filed by Jones in the United States in 1986 and has since expired. The relatively cheap PhoneNET Connectors were superseded by Farallon's faster, but more expensive, EtherWave transceivers after Apple Computer introduced its proprietary AAUI Ethernet port in 1991 with the Macintosh Quadra series. EtherMac adapters were also introduced to allow LocalTalk and EtherTalk networks to be bridged. These network dongles eventually fell out of use as Apple switched to standard Ethernet connectors with the introduction of the iMac G3 in 1998.

Versions

 * PhoneNET (original), version with two RJ-11 ports that connected to the early  serial ports of the Macintosh 512K and 512Ke. It could quickly create a local area network (LAN) without a hub through ing, which could lead to networking problems if a termination resistor was not used.
 * PhoneNET Plus, version with two RJ-11 ports that connected to the more widely-used RS-422 serial ports introduced in the Macintosh Plus and last used in the "Beige" Power Macintosh G3 series.
 * PhoneNET Connector, a 2-port version of the above that was redesigned to aesthetically match Farallon's StarController hubs.
 * PhoneNET Pocket Connector, a single-port version with built-in termination.
 * PhoneNET StarController, a 12 or 24-port hub designed to manage and improve bandwidth of larger AppleTalk LANs by using to isolate traffic to individual nodes.