Connecting Devices and Network Adapter Cards

Summary

There are five kinds of connecting devices; repeaters, Hubs Bridges and two and three-layer switches.

A Repeater is a device that regenerates the original bit pattern.

A Hub is actually a multiport-Repeater.

A bridge regenerates the signal it receives with filtering power that can check the destination address of a frame.

Network adapter cards move data from the local computer to the network and Vice-Versa.

Common connector types found on the back of network adapter cards include a co-axial BNC, a -15- pin attachment unit interface (AUI) connector for Thicknet and an RJ-45 connector for twisted - pair Ethernet.

Network adapter cards have configurable options that may need to be set .

these options include the interrupt (IRQ); the base I/O port specifies a channel through which information is transferred between your computer's hardware.

The base memory address defines the address of a location in your computer's memory.