🚀 go-pugleaf

I am trying to setup my own little token-ring with just two stations
on it.  Every vendor I talk to, wants to sell me a MAU. I have
just two stations and I know that I will never expand this
network, why should I have to buy a MAU? Even two port MAUs are
so expensive I don't want to touch them....

My question to Token-ring gurus is, can I use/get any one of the 
following?

- A Dual Terminal Access Unit or DTAU (People within IBM call it an Onan Box
  because it is made by Onan, Inc., but nobody seems to know how to
  buy one.) A DTAU serves two purposes.  One can connect it to a Token-ring
  wall outlet and then hook up two computers to its two ports, thus essentially
  expanding a single-port wall outlet to two ports.  But by flipping a
  switch one can use the DTAU to simply connect two stations and not hook the
  DTAU to any wall-outlet, thus having a two-station ring.  Does anyone know
  what I am taking about, know where I can buy one of these boxes?

- A 9-pin to 9-pin cable that allows me to connect the two adapters on
  the two computers together?  Will such a cable work if I don't care
  about the fault detecting relays in a MAU?  (What else is a passive MAU
  good for other than the bypass-relays in it?)
  Any recommended vendors for such 9-pin to 9-pin (male to male) cables?
  I have tried BlackBox and Cabletron, didn't work.

- A Cheap 2-port MAU (within $250).  All the ones I have seen are way over
  my meager budget.

It's so hard to believe that setting up a simple two-station ring requires
the purchase of so much extra junk that I don't need (read: an 8-port MAU.)

Any help will be greatly appreciated.  Thanks in advance.
-- 
Aninda DasGupta   (add@philabs.philips.com)
Ph : (914) 945-6071    Fax : (914) 945-6552
Philips Labs\n 345 Scarborough Rd\n  Briarcliff Manor\n NY 10510
(Gas from Phillips Petroleum, Antacid from Phillips Medical, Lightbulbs from us)