Getting files onto old compact Macs

[ianj]

Ethernet is ideal if at all possible, and it happens to be possible on almost every 68K Mac. As Sun once said, "the network is the computer." If you don't have a varied enough Mac selection (or the requisite Thursby software) to do direct file sharing with an OS X machine, run netatalk on a Linux or BSD box (or VM). It's 2012 now and there is definitely no reason for people to be doing sneakernet anymore.

[sirwiggum]

Networking needs the ethernet mac adaptor.
I do have a crossover cable that could be used to share onto the Linux box, and I've been trying to fix the phone line into mission control to put the wireless router (with 4 RJ45 ports).
Sneakernet is the easiest way. In my mind the compacts were designed for the days when computers like these were usually standalone and networking / appletalk was thought of as an addon.

[ianj]

I'm not sure what you've got, but the original poster has an SE/30, which can take an ethernet card. Other compacts can use SCSI-to-ethernet adapters, although I have no experience with them myself (I am mostly into NuBus machines).

If you are just trying to move files as a one-off and sneakernet is easier for that, you may have a point, but if this is to be a regular thing, a network is the proper way. Whether they were designed to be on a network or not is irrelevant unless you are trying really hard to be period-appropriate, but even then, LocalTalk was a thing at the time that Apple pushed, even if not for much more than sharing one LaserWriter between multiple machines. It may not have been commonplace among machines that ended up in homes, but almost all Macs were absolutely designed to be networked. Declaring networking to be an "addition" (whatever you mean by that) is no good reason to not make use of it.

[sirwiggum]

Declaring networking to be an "addition" (whatever you mean by that) is no good reason to not make use of it.

Scrub my previous comment about this being a friendly community.

What I meant was that out of the box (or whatever they arrived in), for example my plus and classic 2 don't have any network interfaces. It is possible to buy SE/30 ethernet cards, SCSI to ethernet adaptors, but what I am finding is that anything apple branded be it a mac plus mouse or an ethernet adaptor seems to command a premium on ebay (and ebay seems to be the only place to obtain vintage apple gear locally unfortunately, and not even counting the usual postage which internationally can be expensive).

Yes of course they can network, and if file transfers are frequent the most elegant solution.

[beachycove]

They had no ethernet interface out of the box, but they had localtalk.

Using the Apple Internet Router (bridges localtalk and ethernet and gives you zones) running on an LC475 as a bridge machine on my Appletalk network, I have successfully connected via localtalk to an ASIP server serving files over ethernet, and mounted a 500gb share on a Macintosh Classic II, running 7.1. The CII could see the file directory and all, despite it being an HFS+ drive. So it can be done with a little period equipment, though I confess that I have not tried to mount the same shared drive on a machine running System 6.

You'd possibly be able to accomplish the same thing using one of those little Asante bridges, or possibly Localtalk Bridge, though I have not found these to be nearly as robust as the Apple Internet Router software.

[ianj]

Scrub my previous comment about this being a friendly community.

I offered an answer to the question posed by this thread. There was no obligation for that answer to be friendly, specifically, but if you actually found it hostile, you may want to grow a thicker skin. Ultimately it's not my concern whether you find my comments, or this community as a whole, to be friendly, though, so do as you like.

What I meant was that out of the box (or whatever they arrived in), for example my plus and classic 2 don't have any network interfaces. It is possible to buy SE/30 ethernet cards, SCSI to ethernet adaptors, but what I am finding is that anything apple branded be it a mac plus mouse or an ethernet adaptor seems to command a premium on ebay (and ebay seems to be the only place to obtain vintage apple gear locally unfortunately, and not even counting the usual postage which internationally can be expensive).

Try posting a WTB on the LowEndMac Swap List or the Trading Post here. I've gotten some good things off of eBay, but swap lists and forums tend to be more effective and cheaper (and people tend to be more flexible about shipping, which sounds like a major concern for you). There's no getting around the fact that old computer hobbies cost money, though, and this particular one will probably get more expensive as time goes on.

[Mac128]

In my mind the compacts were designed for the days when computers like these were usually standalone and networking / appletalk was thought of as an addon.

Actually AppleTalk was designed into the Mac from the beginning, something other PC makers never even considered, then again they had slots for such things. So in that regard, Apple was very forward thinking in that they knew they were designing a closed box and would need to provide for some sort of expansion ... Something that is definitely more than any consumer product needed, so they clearly had an eye toward business from the beginning.

And for the money AppleTalk was a very inexpensive solution compared to PC networking of the day (though one can argue it was made up for in the price of the Mac itself). For a time, it was the cheapest, fastest, and not to mention easiest solution on the market, making the Mac very attractive to small businesses. The Achilles heal was that Apple did not have networking software in place when the LocalTalk solution was introduced, nor were there any good hard drive solutions for the networking software that did exist.

However, whether Apple intended compacts to be standalone computers, the success of the Laserwriter in 1985 cemented the importance of networking (which for the next two and half years only existed in compact Mac form), and from the SE era going forward all of the solutions being mentioned here were readily available on the market, easy to come by, and very expensive -- as were all Ethernet solutions available for any platform. Network was not cheap, either inherently due to economies of scale or technologies involved, or artificially so gouging businesses unnecessarily because they could. Either way, AppleTalk remained the least expensive way for ANY Mac (or PC for that matter) to network until file sizes and the number of users became unmanagble, and Apple began building Ethernet capabilities into the Mac, by which time the compact Mac had been discontinued -- and I'm convinced because Gil Amelio had no idea what he was doing or what the market wanted -- think about it, as an entry level computer it was basically an affordable iMac. And for the record, the Color Classic had built-in expansion slot for Ethernet, something only introduced with entry-level computers a couple of years before with the LC.

So I can only assume you mean these solutions are expensive and hard to come by now ... 20 years after the market for them has eviscerated. And in that regard, I agree that sneakernet is the best way to transfer files with the original Macs today, specifically with the ZIP drive, mainly because Ethernet requires too many intermediaries to be compatible with current Macs, and as you observed, the cost of the vintage equipment which is also hard to come by. And this works with all but the original stock 128K & 512K, for which MacTerminal is the next easiest method directly out of an Modern Mac, described here: http://mac128.com/Mac128/Mac_128_Update ... ssly!.html

[tecneeq]

I have a USB Zip 100 connected to my Thinkpad. And i have a SCSI Zip 100 for the mac side of things.

To transfer files from and to the disks i use hfsutils-tcltk, a package in the current and next version of Debian. To start the GUI run xhfs.

Easy.

[UNA_Lion]

A while back, found an Asante Desktop EN/SC LAN box that connected to the SCSI port of my Classic II. Through that, I manually configured the TCP/IP settings, using my router to set up a fixed IP address. Running the Classic II on OS 7.53, Revision 2, and gaining web access through Netscape Navigator 2.02. I can access most web sites, though it's much easier and faster to go through Loband.

If you get that far, then there are all kinds of software for compact Macs on the web.