Adding Wi-Fi to my Mac SE/30

[Byrd]

Fantastic stuff, ants - from another Mac collector in Melbourne   I'd love to try it on my SE/30 or another 68K machine.

Networking has never been a strength for me, what do you do with it connected to your network - can you access file shares, NAS, or even (with a powerful enough CPU) play shared MP3s?

 

[ants]

How about that rain hahaha! The big thing for me is File Sharing - i.e. easily getting apps onto the Mac to play with. I know there's Floppy Emu etc, but it's incredibly fast & easy to transfer new apps I've just downloaded over the network onto the Mac.

I just use an FTP server running on the Mac, but I've meaning to try out some proper file sharing software such as "Dave" - which might work with NAS devices etc.

Something tells me that a 16mhz processor isn't going to cut the mustard playing an MP3 - I remember many years ago my 33mhz 68040 Mac couldn't even play them...

That said, I do have some grand software plans brewing in my head to breathe new life into my networked Mac - but I'm keeping them under wraps for now just in case they are a total failure!

Watch this space

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Fabulous, especially your writeup. Reminds me of the days of high production value howto web pages that have been replaced by dumbass youboobtube vids.

 

[Gorgonops]

Something tells me that a 16mhz processor isn't going to cut the mustard playing an MP3 - I remember many years ago my 33mhz 68040 Mac couldn't even play them...

It is sort of an amusing irony that the CPU in that Wifi router SoC is *many* times more powerful than the CPU in the computer it's serving.

Anyway, since I neglected to mention it earlier, nice job on both the fabrication and the writeup. The end result looks from the outside just like a commercial product.

So it sounds like you've only tried this with TCP/IP based applications so far? I'd be interested to know if the bridge can handle Ethertalk. (IE, classic Appletalk, not Appleshare IP.) Does it act as a transparent Ethernet bridge in your application, or is it acting as a router NAT-ing clients on the Ethernet side onto the WiFi network?

 

[ants]

580HMz I know! Maybe I should flash the ROM to make it play MP3's hahaha!

I've got another old mac so when I get a chance I'll try out Appletalk and report back.

I'm not a networking guru, but I don't think it's using NAT - the IP address on the Mac is assigned by our home router. That said, there's actually two IP addresses on the network - one for the Mac NIC and one for the Wifi module. This is actually really great because you can easily access the settings on the Wifi card via it's own IP address.

 

[jhorvath911]

This is cool!

I remember in the past either it was bbraun or dougg3 one of the two had done a wifi bridge setup but was able to make a custom program that would interface to the web engine to allow you to change access points, etc.

Here's a link to his project. http://synack.net/~bbraun/wnce2001config.html

I think it would be pretty neat to be able to do the config on the 68k machine.

 

[ants]

Thanks so much for the link jhorvath911. I've been painstakingly teaching myself write classic 68k apps over the last few months. I've finally got some basic HTTP communication happening using the Open Transport libraries, but a long way off having something as polished as what bbraun has achieved.

Cheers.

 

[defor]

This is very nice! great size, and works as a proper bridge- (unlikely) but is there any support for WPA2-Ent in the module? The data sheet doesn't seem to indicate.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I've been painstakingly teaching myself write classic 68k apps over the last few months. I've finally got some basic HTTP communication happening using the Open Transport libraries, but a long way off having something as polished as what bbraun has achieved.

Sweet, keep on trucking!   bbraun does software development for a living, but he's dropped out of the stone age Mac game and is much missed in the community.

 

[LOOM]

Great project! I've been looking for a module like that myself just to bridge the vintage computers from their local switch to the wifi router. I'm currently using a raspberry pi with a wifi dongle, but it's a bit overkill and unreliable.

 bbraun does software development for a living, but he's dropped out of the stone age Mac game and is much missed in the community.

Why? What happened? I'm still looking at his website from time to time to see if he have anything new 68k related in the works, but it seems pretty quiet these days xx(

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Missed this one, bbraun said he's fine the last time I emailed him, it seems things IRL have taken up his 68K playtime or some such.

I'm still in awe of this one, ants! I'm wondering if you have a notion about how well this card would work with an antenna made to surround a PowerBook LCD? Gotta get my hands on a very small, low power AAUI transceiver. Having the WiFi antenna goiter on a PCMCIA NIC sticking out the side of my 190/5300c/ce ProjectBooks is really annoying. [}] ]'>

edit: just emailed him again. Mac68k appears to have gone the way of the waybackmachine. [] ]'>

 

[ants]

Trash80toHP_Mini I think you could fashion an antenna out of some copper wire, copper sheet or something similar. Even when there is no antenna plugged into the wifi module, it still gets reception (when out in the open air and not inside my Mac).

I've seen a heap of AAUI transceivers on eBay that look pretty small - I think they come from Hong Kong.

In other news, progress has been made with my software attempts. I discovered the Retro68 cross-compiler by Wolfgang Thaller, and I was able to get it running on Windows 10 with just a few modifications. Now I can write and compile 68k Mac apps on my ThinkPad!

I've created a few small projects so far on GitHub, but the coolest thing is that I've managed to port a TLS 1.2 library to 68k Mac, which allows HTTPS communication with virtually any modern web server (e.g. GMail!).

Slow progress, but progress nonetheless.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Just call me Trash or jt, the username is a handful! [] ]'>

That's good to hear. I've got a 12inPartsBookG4 that has an antenna I can snag that should probably fit pretty well in the 150, 190 or 5300ce. I'd need the transceiver to pull AAUI off  the 16bit VidCard/NIC combo's PCB internally in either of the latter two. I've got a MicroEN/SC for inside the 150 if I go in that direction.

Thanks for leading the way, fabulous hacks! :approve:

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Just ordered the ThickNet Transceiver and made an offer on the WiFi Card for my SE/30. But I may need to see if I can get the 100bT card up and running in the pet IIfx with the VONETS card as well, thanks for leading the way! [] ]'>

 

[james_w]

This is great - another project to add to my backlog!

 

[ants]

This is very nice! great size, and works as a proper bridge- (unlikely) but is there any support for WPA2-Ent in the module? The data sheet doesn't seem to indicate.

Sorry I missed this reply - I checked the web interface on the Wifi module, but alas there is no WPA2-Enterprise support.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Any chance you might make a CD System disk image available for the SE/30 setup after you've worked out the kinks?

 

[bibilit]

I received one of those VM 300 module, but spent most of this morning trying to find my own SSID, many were available in the panel, but not mine.

A post online advised that channel should be in the 1-11 range, mine was on 7 but was not present, until i set channel to 11.

posting with it right now, can be useful for users having the very same problem.

 

[ants]

@bibilit thanks for your input. I don't think it's been mentioned on this thread yet, but development of a Wifi extension is now underway:

https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/54476-wifi-extension-development-thread/

 

[bibilit]

Can't wait to see the final extension up and running, great job.