Description
A typical model consists of a microprocessor, a modem, and software (in EPROM) that implements the AX.25 protocol and provides a command line interface to the user. (Commonly, this software provides other functionality as well, such as a basic bulletin board system to receive messages while the operator is away.) Because the TNC contains all the intelligence needed to communicate over an AX.25 network, no external computer is required. All of the network's resources can be accessed using a dumb terminal.
The TNC connects to the terminal and a radio transceiver. Data from the terminal is formatted into AX.25 packets and modulated into audio signals (in traditional applications) for transmission by the radio. Received signals are demodulated, the data unformatted, and the output sent to the terminal for display. In addition to these functions, the TNC manages the radio channel according to guidelines in the AX.25 specification.
Read more about this topic: Terminal Node Controller
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“The Sage of Toronto ... spent several decades marveling at the numerous freedoms created by a “global village” instantly and effortlessly accessible to all. Villages, unlike towns, have always been ruled by conformism, isolation, petty surveillance, boredom and repetitive malicious gossip about the same families. Which is a precise enough description of the global spectacle’s present vulgarity.”
—Guy Debord (b. 1931)
“God damnit, why must all those journalists be such sticklers for detail? Why, they’d hold you to an accurate description of the first time you ever made love, expecting you to remember the color of the room and the shape of the windows.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“As they are not seen on their way down the streams, it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite period; a tragic feature in the scenery of the river bottoms worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare’s description of the sea-floor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)