A method and circuit for performing a wired-or function in a differential transmission environment are disclosed. The wired-or function is realized by enabling the differential driver portion of the differential transceiver when the signaling path is to be driven with a logical true signal and disabling the differential driver portion when a logical false signal is to transmitted to the signaling path. In a preferred embodiment, a 1394 backplane node (a node is a single connection to the bus which may or may not be shared by multiple devices) is implemented using commercially available chips including a physical arbiter, a link controller, a differential transceiver, a programmable logic device, and some additional transistors.