Twinaxial cabling

Twinaxial ( twinax cable ) consist of a pair of twisted copper wires ( inner conductor ) in a dielectric and a shield ( outer conductor ). Twinaxial cable used in computer technology for low-loss transmission of balanced signals.

It is related to the triaxial cable, the two conductors are not twisted, but are arranged concentrically inside one another.

IBM Twinax

Twinax cable were of IBM 5250 terminals and printers to connect to IBM midrange host ( AS/400, S/38, S/36 ) used. The data transmission is in half-duplex at 1 Mbit / s over a single 110 Ω shielded twisted pair cable.

Twinax seven devices can be addressed by station address 0 to 6

Continuous Twinax cable can be used up to a distance of 1.6 km. Twinax is a bus topology, which requires a termination. Most Twinax T- connectors are equipped with an automatic termination. Today usually Category 3 or higher twisted pair cable is used for wiring buildings. Baluns convert Twinax to Twisted Pair. Hubs can be converted to a linear topology in a star topology.

Twinax was developed as a replacement for serial terminals via RS- 232. The main advantage is the high speed (1 Mbit / s compared with 9600 bit / s) and a plurality of addressable devices per connection. The drawback is the proprietary twinax cabling.

• Type of cable