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Bridge Mac
- Thread starter HAL2001
- Start date
Alex
Well-known member
I attached a PDF and highlighted what I think could be good for your project. I have purchased items from him and he is a really nice guy and I think his prices are fair. You may want to search for "Ethernet" in the PDF or refer to the items I posted which are extracted from his PDF. I hope it helps.
View attachment MacStuff_Vol2_copy.pdf
He has the following that I suspect would be useful to you.
AsanteTalk Ethernet to LocalTalk Converter
View attachment asantetalk.pdf user manual
DaynaPort SCSI/Link-T Ethernet Adapter
I've never used these devices but perhaps these could be very handy devices for your plans.
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An ethernet to Localtalk converter and some Localtalk cabling is a fantastic investment for anyone interested in data transfer between old Macs (and even the Apple IIgs) and the modern world, I'd strongly recommend laying hands on one. I don't know about in Europe but they're still fairly cheap in the US if you know what you're looking for on eBay, et al. They were commonly sold to convert older Apple printers to Ethernet up to the turn of the century so they're not particularly rare, unlike those SCSI ethernet boxes.
... the downside of them compared to solutions to directly add Ethernet to an older Mac is for most things you'll need a second computer to run some server software to provide file sharing and IP services to the old Mac, and that can be a *little* fiddly. But not a lot. Pre-baked installers and VMs are out there that you can run on a regular computer, and there are also images for devices like the Raspberry Pi if you want a dedicated fire-and-forget solution that costs almost nothing.
... the downside of them compared to solutions to directly add Ethernet to an older Mac is for most things you'll need a second computer to run some server software to provide file sharing and IP services to the old Mac, and that can be a *little* fiddly. But not a lot. Pre-baked installers and VMs are out there that you can run on a regular computer, and there are also images for devices like the Raspberry Pi if you want a dedicated fire-and-forget solution that costs almost nothing.
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davidg5678
Well-known member
I would like to clarify the current functions of Zip Drives: With the most current releases of MacOS (10.6 to 10.13), you cannot write to Standard HFS partitions. This is the file system used by the Compact Macs. There was a driver that allowed for this in newer operating systems, but it seems to have stopped development. My current process has been to download files onto an HFS+ flash drive, transfer the files onto an HFS compatible iBook G3 running OS9 and use a USB Zip Drive to transfer files to my older Macintoshes.
It would be much more convenient to use my modern mac to write standard HFS partitions, but without drivers, this is not an option. Does anyone know a better way of doing things?
It would be much more convenient to use my modern mac to write standard HFS partitions, but without drivers, this is not an option. Does anyone know a better way of doing things?
TheMrKocour
Member
I use Beige G3. Its have old ports (adb, SCSI, appletalk), floppy drive and also you can add USB, FW, better GPU. I am dualbooting Mac OS 9.2 and 10.3.9 on it.
Dog Cow
Well-known member
I would try a desktop or mini-tower Power Macintosh G3. That's what I use. I have a USB card for it too.
It has SCSI and IDE sockets on the motherboard, so you can connect bare SCSI drives to it, which can be handy.
I use a Powerbook G3 Main street as my bridge Mac. The passive matrix screen is terrible though, so I would recommend getting a model that has an active matrix screen. I added USB via the cardbus slot and use an SD card via a USB SD card reader to transfer files between my PC and this Mac.
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EvilCapitalist
Well-known member
Add another voice to the chorus suggesting a beige G3. I use my G3 All-in-one and it works wonderfully for the job. Granted, it's been upgraded to the hilt (1GHz G4, USB, Firewire, Wings card, and a Zip drive) but it worked well even before I got bit by the upgrade bug...except for the Zip drive which I didn't realize could be killed by a CRT and now suffers from the click of death.
What I've found though is that it's much easier to just use an external SCSI hard drive as a go-between for my older machines that don't have ethernet cards. Just about anything I'd be transferring is big enough that using LocalTalk is a pain.
What I've found though is that it's much easier to just use an external SCSI hard drive as a go-between for my older machines that don't have ethernet cards. Just about anything I'd be transferring is big enough that using LocalTalk is a pain.
HAL2001
Well-known member
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reallyrandy
Well-known member
I use a 7200. It can run OS7 thru 9. It also has SCSI, ethernet, ADB, PCI slots for a USB card. I also use an iLamp with a FAT formatted USB drive. I can download to my modern Mac and transfer to my iLamp with the FAT drive, from there i can fill up a USB Zip disk. Or I can fill up an SD card on my modern Mac and stick it in my Floppy EMU for older Macs.
