Cabletron Systems Smart Switch 6000 Chassis 6C105 Modular Backplane

Cabletron Systems Smart Switch 6000 Chassis 6C105 Modular Backplane

The Cabletron Systems 6C105 is a modular chassis for the Smart Switch 6000 platform — a high-capacity, slot-based enterprise switching system designed for building scalable LAN infrastructure in the mid-to-late 1990s. The chassis provides the physical housing, backplane interconnect, and power/cooling framework into which modular line cards, switching engine modules, and power supplies are installed. This unit includes the internal multi-slot backplane PCB with partial card population as shown in the photos; no power supply modules are present.

Specifications & What's Included

• Model: Cabletron Systems 6C105
• Platform: Smart Switch 6000 (SS6000)
• Form factor: Modular standalone cabinet chassis
• Internal backplane PCB installed — multi-slot card-edge connector backplane with partial module population
• ESD wrist strap grounding receptacle present (bottom edge, PS2 position)
• Certifications: UL Listed (16EO), CE, GS
• FCC compliance: Part 15, ITE Multimedia Access Center
• VCCI-1 (Japan) compliance label present
• Power supply modules: NOT included
• Line cards / switching modules: partially populated as shown — see photos for exact configuration

Applications

The Cabletron Smart Switch 6000 was a modular, chassis-based enterprise LAN switch family introduced in the mid-1990s, positioned as a high-density wiring-closet and campus backbone solution. The chassis-and-card architecture allowed network administrators to mix Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Token Ring, FDDI, and ATM line cards in a single enclosure, making it a flexible hub for heterogeneous networks of the era. Cabletron Systems was one of the dominant enterprise networking vendors of the 1990s alongside 3Com and Bay Networks, and the Smart Switch 6000 line was deployed widely in universities, large enterprises, and government networks. Today these chassis are sought by collectors of vintage networking equipment and by administrators maintaining legacy Cabletron network segments. Replacement line cards, switching fabric modules, and power supplies for the SS6000 platform are still occasionally available on the secondary market.