text: ARCNET was eventually standardized as ANSI ARCNET 878.1. It appears this was when the name changed from ARCnet to ARCNET. Other companies entered the market, notably Standard Microsystems who produced systems based on a single VLSI chip, originally developed as custom LSI for Datapoint, but later made available by Standard Microsystems to other customers. Datapoint eventually found itself in financial trouble and eventually moved into video conferencing and (later) custom programming in the embedded market.
  Even though ARCNET is now rarely used for new general networks, the diminishing installed base still requires support - and it retains a niche in industrial control.
  Description
  Original ARCNET used RG-62/U coaxial cable of  impedance and either passive or active hubs in a star-wired bus topology. At the time of its greatest popularity, this was a significant advantage of ARCNET over Ethernet. A star-wired bus was much easier to build and expand (and was more readily maintainable) than the clumsy linear bus Ethernet of the time. The "interconnected stars" cabling topology made it easy to add and remove nodes without taking down the whole network, and much easier to diagnose and isolate failures within a complex LAN.
  Another significant advantage ARCNET had over Ethernet was cable distance. ARCNET coax cable runs could extend  between active hubs or between an active hub and an end node, while the RG-58 (50Ω) 'thin' Ethernet most widely used at that time was limited to a maximum run of  from end to end.