Oh, you have to connect your PDA and laptop to my LAN? No problem. I've a couple of empty RJ-45 ports somewhere behind the scenes.

Just a sec. Let me dive under the desk to reach the rearside of my PC and hub... BOINK (F***! I bumped my head against somethin')... SWISH (Damn! A cockroach jumped at my face)... Right, here you are. Connect your gear to this Ethernet cable. What? Doesn't work? Oho, I made a mistake. This is a cross cable, not the straight one!

Another approcach: Here is an extra switching hub. Connect as many gears as you want to it. Oh my, we need AC power source for this hub. Got an extension AC cable? No? OK, I'll run down to our local convenience store and buy a couple of them, just wait.

These days, price of switching hub has plummeted enough, sometimes sinking cheaper than even a disposable gas lighter. But all the hubs use AC for their power. This could be a source of headaches, sometimes. Theoretically, battery-operated hubs exist, but I haven't seen them recently in Akiba.

Sigma APO's LS2 LAN switch box. As low-tech as a paper clip.

There is a neat solution. Albeit a very low-tech one.

An Akiba peripheral/component trader, Sigma APO System Sales Co., has convenient LAN switch boxes, LS series, on its stock list.

LS2 works as a simple 2-to-1 switch box, selectable by a manual switch on top. When only A and B jacks are connected, LS2 acts as a LAN cable extender, either cross (switch position, middle) or straight (default). All eight wires of RJ-45 are switched. Of course, no powers are necessary, the lowest of low-tech gear, 10BASE-T/100BASE-TX-compatible.

LS21 and LS41 have lost the cross-straight converter function of earlier LS2 model. Instead, they now accept 1000BASE-T cable. Simple 2-to-1, and 4-to-1 LAN switch, switchable by push buttons. All models have two color variations, black and white.

LS21BK	LS21WH

Price list: LS2 1,500 yen (US$12.50). LS21 (2-to-1) 1,800 yen (US$15), LS41 (4-to-1) 1,950 yen (US$16.25). Just a bit more economical than switching hub, but not much.

Where is the most suitable location to use these LAN switch boxes? Switching two or more entire LAN systems. Switching two LAN gateways would be a natural niche, too. Anyway, low-tech or no-tech could be quite useful in some environments, even in this 21st Century.

 

cheewee
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kaisei1
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