"What is the meaning of ten-bassit," my friend jas asks me once. What is a tenbassit, indeed.
Where did I get the nickname/handle/non-de-plume of tenbaset, I hear the crowds silently ask.
It was first created when I needed an account name for a free ISP around here, when they were all the rage. I was trying variations on my name, Shannon McCracken, but was unable to find one that (a) I had a reasonable chance of remembering, and (b) nobody else had already taken.
I eventually decided that a variation on my name wasn't going to work. I thought a bit harder, thought about words that I use in my day-to-day life, and eventually came up with the name tenbaset.
But what the heck does it mean?
It's actually slightly missspelt. It's not tenbassit, but tenbaset. Seperate it out into ten-base-t. Ten Base Tee is the correct pronouncation. 10 Base Tee, 10 Base T, or as it's more usually written 10BaseT. 10 megabit, unshielded twisted pair. All the geeks in the audience promptly tune out, as they know the rest of the story.
It's a computer networking standard. (Told you it's a term I use in day-to-day practise.) The first digit is the speed, and the last letter indicates the media in use. This naming convention is used for the various variations of Ethernet that are in use. (Ethernet, AKA CSMA/CD, AKA IEEE 802.2. Well, okay, I know that ethernet != IEEE 802.2, but the differences are pretty minor. They're electrically compatable, just the frame layout is a bit different.)
Anyway, the first number is the speed, in megabits per second, of the network in use. 10 is on the slow side these days, where the current in thing is gigabit ethernet, at 1,000 megabits per second. Whereas, I believe that back in history there was a one megabit standard
The last character indicates the media in use, or the type of cable. T means UTP, or unsheilded twisted pair. A type of cable where a number of pairs of wire are in the same cable, and each pair of wires has lots and lots of twists throughout the length. (The reason for the twists is that hopefully any electircal interferrence would be picked up equally by the two wires, and the base-T standards actually transmit signals as the difference in voltage between both wires in a pair.)
Other media in use is F, for fiber optic cable. (This is the cool stuff). 2 "thinnet", for 2mm radius co-axial cable (kinda like the round TV cable. Very similar, execpt with a 50 ohm charastic impeadience instead of 75 ohms for TV) and 5, for 5 mm radius "thicknet". I have never actually seen this stuff, but apparently it's similar to hydrolic hose, leading to at least one person to attempt to put a cable tap on oil-filled hose. Not a good idea.
Thus, you have such standards as: (and this is not a complete list)
As yet, I don't know what the word base actually means. Ironic, that.
If you've actually used a network computer, the odd's are these days that it's either 10BaseT or 100BaseT that's plugged in the back. Ask your network administrator. You can recognise UTP cable (that's the T in 10BaseT) because it's about 4 mm in diameter and usually brightly coloured. The connecter plugs on the end click in. (Tecnically, they're RJ-45 plugs.) They're sort of similar to the BT phone connectors we use in NZ, but the plastic clip is on the opposite side to the conductors, as opposed to "on the side" like NZ phones. (Note to any non-NZ readers: NZ phones don't use RJ-11, but BT standard).
The odds that it's not ethernet are pretty low (although possible but you'd already know what it is if that's not the case. Token ring?). base5 is soo rare, you'd know. These standards tend to be found only in server rooms, and places where tech's live. It's possible you've got a base2 network. The cable there looks like TV-Video cable, and it has a T connector to plug into the back of your computer. It's got a bayonet fit (like a lightbulb) (AKA BNC connector). And, a hunk of 10base2 cable with a T connector on the end makes a truely fantastic cat toy.
If you do have fiber to the workstation, can I come visit? That's also kinda unlikely.