John Hokanson Jr.
Well-known member
Evening Gents,
This my first post. The retro Mac bug has bit me. I own two iMacs that I perchased from forum member Mike Richardson, and I love them dearly.
I don't know where else to put this, so I figure I'll try posting it in the RetroChallenge forum, since it's kinda a Retro Challenge I'd like to do.
What I was thinking about doing is turning an old Mac into a file server and/or firewall. Similar to what Linux users have done with old 386/486 computers lying around? However, I'm kinda wondering what would be the lowest unit that I could realistically do this with. Like for instance, a 68040 running BSD would be awesome. Particularly if I could get it running with say...a Quadra 605. 30W power supply and small footprint sounds tailor made for this. And the thought of working with 68k processors sounds awesome.
However, I've noticed that most Linux/BSD firewalls require at least two LAN Cards, and that's not going to fly on an old Quadra. Plus, an IDE bus would be best for serving files since you can install large drives. So I'm leaning toward an old PCI Mac instead, unless they made a NuBus Mac with the capability to have two LAN cards. Say maybe a 6400.
I have four 72-pin SIMMs (all 16 meg) basically sitting around and doing nothing, along with various 168 pin DIMMs.
Video doesn't matter at all. Even vampire video will work okay. This machine will likely spend the majority of it's time headless. I can get an old 14 inch CRT to display video if I ever need to change settings.
Ideas?
- John
This my first post. The retro Mac bug has bit me. I own two iMacs that I perchased from forum member Mike Richardson, and I love them dearly.
I don't know where else to put this, so I figure I'll try posting it in the RetroChallenge forum, since it's kinda a Retro Challenge I'd like to do.
What I was thinking about doing is turning an old Mac into a file server and/or firewall. Similar to what Linux users have done with old 386/486 computers lying around? However, I'm kinda wondering what would be the lowest unit that I could realistically do this with. Like for instance, a 68040 running BSD would be awesome. Particularly if I could get it running with say...a Quadra 605. 30W power supply and small footprint sounds tailor made for this. And the thought of working with 68k processors sounds awesome.
However, I've noticed that most Linux/BSD firewalls require at least two LAN Cards, and that's not going to fly on an old Quadra. Plus, an IDE bus would be best for serving files since you can install large drives. So I'm leaning toward an old PCI Mac instead, unless they made a NuBus Mac with the capability to have two LAN cards. Say maybe a 6400.
I have four 72-pin SIMMs (all 16 meg) basically sitting around and doing nothing, along with various 168 pin DIMMs.
Video doesn't matter at all. Even vampire video will work okay. This machine will likely spend the majority of it's time headless. I can get an old 14 inch CRT to display video if I ever need to change settings.
Ideas?
- John