AppleShare via AirTalk between Mac Plus and MacBook Air

[LaPorta]

I'm also wondering: is it possible to be an AppleShare client under System 6, connected to a System 7 server? That was a thread about this you started a few years ago, but it ended without resolution. It seems that maybe you need a System 6 Workstation disk, but I haven't found this, and I'm not sure if it's an alternative version of System 6 or just an extension you throw into the System folder. To add to the challenge, I'm hoping to do all this on a Mac Plus booted from a floppy drive, so the boot disk needs to be 800K.

I did nail down the cause of this: my ignorance of System 6. There's a version of System 6 that is just a file server...I believe I have a copy of it now in my files. However, it precludes the use of the machine as a regular computer - it just becomes a dedicated file server. There's no file sharing while using the machine as normal as you do in System 7.

 

[Phipli]

Just be aware, there are two versions of the iPrint aren't there? The one that you want, which supports LT, and the one that you don't, which is serial only.

 

[Mk.558]

You won't want that System 6 ASFS 2.0.1. It's miserable because you can't use the machine for anything else. You can only interact with your host system via something like DiskTop. I wrote a section on it in the Guide.

 

[cheesestraws]

The AppleShare that came with at least later versions of System 6 will talk to System 7's inbuilt file sharing.

Agree with what @Mk.558 says about serving from System 6 - it's generally a pain and a miserable time.

 

[zefrenchtoon]

Seconding LaPorta. People have decided that Ethernet/LocalTalk bridges are valuable, and the prices have shot up to close to or even greater than $100. That said, through patience, I managed to get a Farallon iPrint for a reasonable price, so it is possible.

That's exactly why when I could get an AsanteTalk for 35€ ... I did not try to discuss the price with the seller

 

[LaPorta]

Just be aware, there are two versions of the iPrint aren't there? The one that you want, which supports LT, and the one that you don't, which is serial only.

Interesting, I did not realize that.

 

[bigmessowires]

The AppleShare that came with at least later versions of System 6 will talk to System 7's inbuilt file sharing.

Yes, I got it to work. It was just a brain failure on my part. I barely squeezed AppleTalk onto an 800K System 6.0.8 startup disk, so I can be an AppleTalk client running from a floppy disk on a Mac Plus. Good times.

 

[Phipli]

Yes, I got it to work. It was just a brain failure on my part. I barely squeezed AppleTalk onto an 800K System 6.0.8 startup disk, so I can be an AppleTalk client running from a floppy disk on a Mac Plus. Good times.

Remember you can strip out fonts and sounds from the system file, the system font is in the ROM, so even that isn't needed

 

[LaPorta]

Sorry, I thought you wanted to SHARE files on System 6, not connect to a server.

 

[cheesestraws]

Yes, I got it to work. It was just a brain failure on my part. I barely squeezed AppleTalk onto an 800K System 6.0.8 startup disk, so I can be an AppleTalk client running from a floppy disk on a Mac Plus. Good times.

Nice!

 

[Iesca]

Just be aware, there are two versions of the iPrint aren't there? The one that you want, which supports LT, and the one that you don't, which is serial only.

Yes, the iPrint LT (PN559) is the one for LocalTalk, the iPrint SL (PN553) is the Serial version. Unfortunately they both look identical from the front, so you have the check the rear label to be sure.

 

[LaPorta]

Mine actually says iPrint LT on the front.

 

[LaPorta]

@bigmessowires, I have never gone the other way: virtual machine. Hopw does one go about hooking an AirTalk up to MinivMac?

 

[bigmessowires]

You don't need an AirTalk for Mini vMac, you just need a special build of Mini vMac with LocalTalk support compiled in. Then it communicates with the AirTalks on your home WiFi. Pretty nice!

 

[robin-fo]

View attachment 62727

@cheesestraws This looks like a complicated LocalTalk network. Is it possible, that the CTS/RTS packet exchange slows down everything? The LocalTalk bridge which is itself sort of a hack won‘t help either.. Time to implement routing in the AirTalk?

 

[cheesestraws]

Is it possible, that the CTS/RTS packet exchange slows down everything?

CTS/RTS are handled locally on the AirTalk/tashtalk, they never go over the WiFi, because the timing requirements on them are too tight and because WiFi takes care of the collision management at a lower level, hooray. So the AirTalk answers the CTS/RTS handshake for nodes it has seen on the IP side recently (for a rather long definition of 'recently') and IIRC it does that for ENQ/ACK too.

(This can cause problems for some printers, which don't send any information unsolicited, not even NBP advertisements - you have to poke them a bit to get them to broadcast something, say by opening the Chooser and selecting the printer driver. I don't know how to get around this - suggestions on a postcard...)

Time to implement routing in the AirTalk?

I thought about that - the problem with it was that it becomes really messy to get the "plug and play" bit working, because you need to assign network numbers and so forth. So all the AirTalks would have to actually be aware of one another and communicate between themselves in a far more complex way than they do now, and I didn't have a huge amount of confidence I could get it to work in a way that would result in a 'just plug it in and it works' kind of way.

Anyway, I've finished showing my working now, sorry for thread derail

 

[cheesestraws]

... the way to fix this is just to generate an ENQ when a handshake is attempted to a node that's not currently in the node table on either side, isn't it. I wonder how much work that would be to add. I should check.

Thread derailed doubly! Sorry

 

[Phipli]

... the way to fix this is just to generate an ENQ when a handshake is attempted to a node that's not currently in the node table on either side, isn't it. I wonder how much work that would be to add. I should check.

Thread derailed doubly! Sorry

 

[LaPorta]

You don't need an AirTalk for Mini vMac, you just need a special build of Mini vMac with LocalTalk support compiled in. Then it communicates with the AirTalks on your home WiFi. Pretty nice!

Oh neat! I thought the AirTalk had to be connected to the emulating machine by ISB or something. I get it! Now I see exactly why you got the slowdown.

 

[LaPorta]

@cheesestraws This looks like a complicated LocalTalk network. Is it possible, that the CTS/RTS packet exchange slows down everything? The LocalTalk bridge which is itself sort of a hack won‘t help either.. Time to implement routing in the AirTalk?

The highly technical diagram I made shows how I got things to play along nicely. By that I mean I got good speed with it, not that it was slow configured in this manner.