DELNI's are ethernet hubs. They allow several stations to be attached to 
the ethernet at one point without having to space them out on the big 
yellow cable. In a typical installation there would be DELNI attached to 
the yellow cable, and then several workstations attached to the DELNI with 
long AUI cables.

These days they aren't that useful (plus they never dealt with back to back 
ethernet packets very well anyway) however if you have several machines 
with AUI connectors on the back like I do in a single room, you can hook 
them up to the DELNI using AUI cables and then hook the DELNI up with a 
single AUI to 10BT converter to the rest of your network. This saves on 
10baseT transceivers.

If you have a section of yellow ethernet cable (the big thick stuff) and 
one of Doug's Vampire taps they could make a pretty interesting museum 
display. Especially next to a 10/100 8 port ethernet switch.

--Chuck

At 08:20 PM 2/21/00 -0500, Kent Rankin wrote:
> > P.S. Several people have sold (or tried to sell!) DEC DELNIs on Ebay. They
> > aren't very practical hence there low value.
>
>         I've got twelve of the buggers.  What can I use them for?
>
>         Does anyone else have a use for them?
>
>         Most of them are the newer, white cases, but some are the older grey
>gear, too.  All of them have rack ears.
>
>         Anyhow, I'd love to know how I could put them to use, or if 
> anyone else
>is interested in them.  I'd be more than glad to sell them for $10 each.
>
>
>                                                                 Thanks,
>                                                                 Kent Rankin