What was a Token Ring network?

What was a Token Ring network? Token Ring is an obsolete networking technology that competed with Ethernet in the 1980s and 1990s. IBM first announced it October 15, 1985. It is more of a curiosity today, as the networking standard that lost. But when Token Ring equipment turns up, it can look enough like Ethernet to confuse people. And why it lost can be interesting to study.

Token Ring gets a bad rap today, and that isn’t necessarily fair. Token Ring was a standard backed by IBM. Ethernet was an open standard backed by DEC , 3Com and others. Of course Ethernet won.