> I simply needed confirmation of what the name on it did mean. 

DESTA stands (IIRC) for Digital Ethernet Station Adapter. As others
have pointed out, you use to to allow a device with a "thickwire"
interface to connect to a "thinwire" run. In the "thickwire" 
implementation the host had a connection called AUI (attached
unit interface?) that was connected via AUI cable to a transceiver
that was directly connected to the ethernet backbone cable (usually
via a vampire tap). An example of such a transceiver (H4000) can
be seen here: http://208.190.133.201/decimages/h4000tmp.pdf.

When thinwire came along (basically a long RG58 cable with a 50 ohm
terminator at each end and T-pieces everwhere you wanted to add a
station), the DESTA was the way to hook up the older-style interface
to the new-style (and easier to use) network cable.

I thought I had a manual for one, but apparently not.

There are other variants (with names that I forget) that do
AUI-to-RJ45 and a powered one that goes from Thinwire to
RJ45.

Antonio

 
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Antonio Carlini             arcarlini@iee.org