Definitions for "ARCnet"
A 2.5 megabit per second baseband, token-passing network designed by Datapoint Corporation that supports up to 255 nodes.
A relatively simple and inexpensive cabling architecture that has been used for many years. Because its performance is not generally as fast as other network architectures (its transmission rate is only 2.5 Mbps, or megabytes per second), it is typically used in smaller networks. ARCnet Plus is a newer version of ARCnet; its transmission rate is 20 Mbps. ARCnet can use either a star or a bus topology, but the star topology usually provides better performance.
A proprietary token-bus networking architecture developed by Datapoint Corporation in the mid-1970s. It is reliable and it supports coaxial, twisted pair and fiber optic cable-based implementations.