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Best bridge machine?

jdlanza

Well-known member
Curious to hear the community's thoughts/recommendations. I would like to build an environment that has, at one end, a machine capable of operating on the modern Internet for downloading apps, etc. from, e.g., Macintosh Garden. The other end would be any number of vintage Macs on which the downloaded apps, etc. would get installed.

In between, I would like to put a machine that speaks Ethernet to the modern machines and LocalTalk to the vintage machines. Suggestions?

johnl
 

3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
"Modern Internet" machine is a tough one if you want SCSI support. I'd recommend a Pismo G3 or a G4 Power Mac with a SCSI card for that, but the internet will still be super slow. They'll handle the garden fine though, anything more complicated will be sloooowwww. The middle machine could apply to just about any beige PPC mac I'd imagine. Some would require seperate ethernet cards or an AAUI adapter though. Someone will have to verify what systems are compatible with LocalTalk, but I'd imagine any with a serial port would?
 

Nixontheknight

Well-known member
"Modern Internet" machine is a tough one if you want SCSI support. I'd recommend a Pismo G3 or a G4 Power Mac with a SCSI card for that, but the internet will still be super slow. They'll handle the garden fine though, anything more complicated will be sloooowwww. The middle machine could apply to just about any beige PPC mac I'd imagine. Some would require seperate ethernet cards or an AAUI adapter though. Someone will have to verify what systems are compatible with LocalTalk, but I'd imagine any with a serial port would?
I think any PCI power Mac before the G3 blue and white would make a good bridge machine, as you can install a USB PCI card to use flash drives and write image files to floppies, transfer files to older macs via LocalTalk or EtherTalk, and get files from the internet via Macintosh Garden or Macintosh Repository. But if you're going to use a laptop as a bridge machine, any G3 PowerBook will work, except the Pismo, which dropped SCSI in favor of FireWire. But for USB, the Lombard and Pismo are your best bets, along with any iBook G3
 
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AwkwardPotato

Well-known member
When CircuitBored is able to do another run of CircuitTalk cards, you may be able to snag one and do file sharing over LocalTalk from any number of G4 PowerMacs (an OS9-capable Quicksilver or MDD would probably be your best bet with regards to using the modern internet, although anything past the Garden will still be frustratingly slow). I don't have one of these cards myself (yet) but I've only heard great things about them.

https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?thr...-circuittalk-localtalk-for-powermac-g4.40182/

Past that, basically any beige PowerMac from the 7200 to the G3 should also be able to access the Mac Garden as well as file share over LocalTalk, albeit more slowly. Avoid the x100 PowerMacs and earlier for this purpose since you'll need an ethernet transceiver to connect them to more modern gear, which seem to be getting increasingly expensive.
 

Phipli

Well-known member
It used to be that Beige G3s were bargain cheap and had ethernet and serial ports for networking to old and new. It would be my go to if you can still find one cheap. If space is an issue, I'd go for an early G3 PowerBook such as a Wallstreet, one with serial ports. If you're only using LocalTalk between a pair of machines all you need is a single serial cable.

Be warned that USB can be a little unreliable with PCI cards and in some setups fails on larger transfers. I wouldn't rely on it as my way of transferring files on a machine that wasn't built with USB. Ethernet is excellent though.
 

volvo242gt

Well-known member
I've usually used either a B&W or an older G4 as a bridge machine. That said, instead of trying to do LocalTalk, I usually just would take the hard drive out of the 68K Mac and install it in an external case, then connect it to the Adaptec card I'd be using in one of those machines, using a SCSI cable. Or, I'd sometimes just run a ribbon cable out the back, along with a molex connector for power, connect the bare drive to the card's internal SCSI header, then boot the computer up with the drive attached. Copy files and install software, then reinstall the drive in the target computer. The machine used for accessing MG, etc, usually was/is an Intel Mac of some type.
 

Hopfenholz

Well-known member
Beige G3 tower is what I have for this role. Somehow the fact that it’s beige seems important - it links visually back to the old stuff
 

lobust

Well-known member
I guess I'm the exception to the rule, but I don't really use a bridge machine.

Navigator 3 on a Quadra downloads files just fine from the Garden. It struggles with the Repository, but I notice the owner of that site has made a pretty cool little downloader app for old Macs for that site, although I haven't tried it yet.

I have never had any real trouble getting OT working back to 7.1, so I just plug in ethernet and get on with it.

I guess I technically occasionally use the G4 as a bridge if someone uploaded something to the Garden in a difficult format that I can't decompress on the older machines, but it is still done over the network and not with physical media. Before I had the G4 (or the G3) I used would download problematic files on my pc, recompress them in sheepshaver, then serve them on a FTP server to my macs.

If I had any II's or older in my collection that would likely be a different story, but I don't (yet).
 

ArmorAlley

Well-known member
I use a Mac Mini G4 as my LAN file server for Mac OS 9 (and below) files.

I have Mac OS 9.2.2 on it and it's running AppleShare 6.1.
All of my old Macs [1] (bar the 512K) have ethernet and are connected up to the LAN.

The Mac Mini G4 is not bad as an access point to the Mac Garden. DMGs and some zip-files are a problem in Mac OS 9.2.2 but I also have an OS X 10.3.9 partition for such cases. At the moment, I have formatted a 512GB mSATA drive into 8 HFS partitions and 4 HFS partitions and I am about to install it into the Mac Mini G4. The next step will be automatic backup software onto a FW-drive.
For the 512K I have a Floppy Emu.

I don't use LocalTalk on the grounds that it is too slow, but because everything is on an ethernet LAN, I could easily use my WGS9150, Q610 or IIfx to make a LocalTalk connection. Sneakernet is also worth considering. You'll need at least two devices: SCSI & FW/built-in. It can be Zip-drives, Jaz-drives, MO-drives or CDs. Floppies are, in theory, possible but I would avoid them. They are very old now and often too small.

In answer to your question about a bridge machine, the standard answer is the Beige G3 but I wouldn't access the Macintosh Garden on a 266MHz G3. It is too slow. As a bridge between G4 Macs & onwards and pre-G4 Macs, any PCI Mac before a G4 will do. With the B&W G3, you'll need a third-party serial port and you'll need to check whether it supports LocalTalk. As has been mentioned above, CircuitBored is making a serial port adapter and I am looking forward to it.

Finally, for more modern Internet, my main work machine runs Ubuntu and I transfer files via a USB stick for sites that Clasilla 9.3.3 can't handle.

[1] The Macs on my LAN are: SE, IIfx, Q610, WGS9150, B&W G3, Mac Mini G4. I also have a PM G5 but I have to learn more about Mac OS X to get it on the network. It can access the Mac Garden itself anyway.
 

MrFahrenheit

Well-known member
Presently, I’m using a dual core G5, with PCIe slots, and an ATTO UL5D SCSI card. I have Tiger 10.4.11 with Classic. Then I have all of these bridge disk formats:

1E872FCD-C28F-4C52-A130-EF48C7EA3909.jpeg


Here we have a USB Zip 100 drive, a SCSI Iomega Jaz 1GB drive, a Firewire 1.3GB Fujitsu magneto optical drive, a SCSI 9.1GB HP Surestore 9100mx magneto optical drive, and the built-in CD/DVD burner. I then use a stack of the same vintage removable drives over at my beige Mac area, and I sneakernet the disk over with new files downloaded. The G5 has SATA, and I've put a 2TB disk in there to hold my files and such.

The ATTO UL5D card isn't cheap, but from research I've done it seems to be compatible with the 5,1 Mac Pro, which would mean all of these bridging devices I have should be transferable over to a 5,1 Mac Pro. I haven't tried that part yet, though.
 

Skate323k137

Well-known member
My 7500 is my main bridge machine. It has a USB and Firewire card which helps, plus ethernet, serial, etc., floppy drive, SCSI... for the most part it's all I really need, if I truly need to use a bridge machine.
 

dochilli

Well-known member
MacIP could be used, but you need a localtalk/ethernet bridge (Asante or Mac with Ethernet and bridge software).
There are versions for raspberrypi, orangepi and a virtual machine.

A2SERVER could the same, but the website seems to be down.
 

jdlanza

Well-known member
"Modern Internet" machine is a tough one if you want SCSI support. I'd recommend a Pismo G3 or a G4 Power Mac with a SCSI card for that, but the internet will still be super slow. They'll handle the garden fine though, anything more complicated will be sloooowwww. The middle machine could apply to just about any beige PPC mac I'd imagine. Some would require seperate ethernet cards or an AAUI adapter though. Someone will have to verify what systems are compatible with LocalTalk, but I'd imagine any with a serial port would?
Thanks for these thoughts! The externally-facing machine doesn't need to directly support SCSI -- it's enough for that machine to behave well on the Internet and then pass the files off to an older machine. Beige PPC Mac seems to be the machine of choice for the "middle machine!"
 

jdlanza

Well-known member
When CircuitBored is able to do another run of CircuitTalk cards, you may be able to snag one and do file sharing over LocalTalk from any number of G4 PowerMacs (an OS9-capable Quicksilver or MDD would probably be your best bet with regards to using the modern internet, although anything past the Garden will still be frustratingly slow). I don't have one of these cards myself (yet) but I've only heard great things about them.

https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?thr...-circuittalk-localtalk-for-powermac-g4.40182/

Past that, basically any beige PowerMac from the 7200 to the G3 should also be able to access the Mac Garden as well as file share over LocalTalk, albeit more slowly. Avoid the x100 PowerMacs and earlier for this purpose since you'll need an ethernet transceiver to connect them to more modern gear, which seem to be getting increasingly expensive.
Yes, I am eagerly looking forward to next run of CircuitTalk cards (hint, hint)!
 

jdlanza

Well-known member
I use a Mac Mini G4 as my LAN file server for Mac OS 9 (and below) files.

I have Mac OS 9.2.2 on it and it's running AppleShare 6.1.
All of my old Macs [1] (bar the 512K) have ethernet and are connected up to the LAN.

The Mac Mini G4 is not bad as an access point to the Mac Garden. DMGs and some zip-files are a problem in Mac OS 9.2.2 but I also have an OS X 10.3.9 partition for such cases. At the moment, I have formatted a 512GB mSATA drive into 8 HFS partitions and 4 HFS partitions and I am about to install it into the Mac Mini G4. The next step will be automatic backup software onto a FW-drive.
For the 512K I have a Floppy Emu.

I don't use LocalTalk on the grounds that it is too slow, but because everything is on an ethernet LAN, I could easily use my WGS9150, Q610 or IIfx to make a LocalTalk connection. Sneakernet is also worth considering. You'll need at least two devices: SCSI & FW/built-in. It can be Zip-drives, Jaz-drives, MO-drives or CDs. Floppies are, in theory, possible but I would avoid them. They are very old now and often too small.

In answer to your question about a bridge machine, the standard answer is the Beige G3 but I wouldn't access the Macintosh Garden on a 266MHz G3. It is too slow. As a bridge between G4 Macs & onwards and pre-G4 Macs, any PCI Mac before a G4 will do. With the B&W G3, you'll need a third-party serial port and you'll need to check whether it supports LocalTalk. As has been mentioned above, CircuitBored is making a serial port adapter and I am looking forward to it.

Finally, for more modern Internet, my main work machine runs Ubuntu and I transfer files via a USB stick for sites that Clasilla 9.3.3 can't handle.

[1] The Macs on my LAN are: SE, IIfx, Q610, WGS9150, B&W G3, Mac Mini G4. I also have a PM G5 but I have to learn more about Mac OS X to get it on the network. It can access the Mac Garden itself anyway.
Pretty sweet to have Enet on all those older machines. I'm trying to avoid buying cards for all my older machines!
 

jdlanza

Well-known member
Presently, I’m using a dual core G5, with PCIe slots, and an ATTO UL5D SCSI card. I have Tiger 10.4.11 with Classic. Then I have all of these bridge disk formats:

View attachment 48355


Here we have a USB Zip 100 drive, a SCSI Iomega Jaz 1GB drive, a Firewire 1.3GB Fujitsu magneto optical drive, a SCSI 9.1GB HP Surestore 9100mx magneto optical drive, and the built-in CD/DVD burner. I then use a stack of the same vintage removable drives over at my beige Mac area, and I sneakernet the disk over with new files downloaded. The G5 has SATA, and I've put a 2TB disk in there to hold my files and such.

The ATTO UL5D card isn't cheap, but from research I've done it seems to be compatible with the 5,1 Mac Pro, which would mean all of these bridging devices I have should be transferable over to a 5,1 Mac Pro. I haven't tried that part yet, though.
This is pretty sweet -- I am mildly jealous!
 
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