Getting my Compact Mac online with local talk

[FlyingToaster]

Hey everyone, I'm looking for some advice on how to get my Classic or SE/30 online through a local talk connection. Right now I have a Powerbook 190 with an Orinoco wireless card and localtalk bridge connecting my Classic to my XP machine using software called PC MACLAN. That's the closest to connecting to the outside I've got. I know the speeds would be very low but that's expected. If not possible on the Classic, I have the SE/30 System 7.5.5 to work with if that makes things easier. Maybe a control panel or extension on the middleman computer and some TCP/IP adjustments on the SE/30? Apologies if this information is here already, just cant find a direct answer

I have other macs, a 1400C and original Powerbook G3 if they would be any use in this. And a supra express 56k :?:

Thanks in advance if anyone can help me out

 

[FlyingToaster]

MacIP Found some more information about this as I am trying to answer my own question. Surrounded by several macs, I hope to get this working. Seems complex..!

Too much time playing stupid games I never devoted my brain to the important stuff.

 

[Bunsen]

This site has an amazing tool called "Search"...

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=15930

 

[Mk.558]

I highly doubt you'll be able to "go online" with LocalTalk. It's not a TCP/IP protocol.

If you use the modem serial port with a modem, then yes you can do so "off a LocalTalk port". But LocalTalk is a LAN-type protocol meant for file and printer sharing. Just like FTP can't be used for IRC, neither can AFP be used for the network time protocols (although, with hacks, likely).

On the same token, you cannot run MacIP (LocalTalk) and TCP/IP (eg. using an Ethernet card) at the same time. The TCP/IP application in 7.5+ will not permit this. (Only LocalTalk Bridge does something like this, and it's just a software variant of a LocalTalk to Ethernet bridge, aka AsanteTalk or Farallon iPrint.) You won't be able to do it either in 7.0 or System 6, because the Network CDEV will only let you use one interface at a time.

The only time I believe you can be online on one interface (like Ethernet) and LAN-enabled on the other (eg. through FireWire, which is an odd way of networking things) is with OS X.

If you have all computers hooked together with a router via Ethernet, and that router has internet access, then you can use LAN and Internet at the same time. There may be some variant of some $$$$ LocalTalk gateway thing that I've heard of before in a fleeting remark or passage but I don't remember it, but it may be able to do what you'd like.

Getting any computer older than about '95/96 generations is sort of pointless, other than to say you did or show off to friends. Web pages are glacially slow and many don't render right. If you want to view a .JPG image that's, say 800x600, it might take five minutes to restore curser control.

 

[FlyingToaster]

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=11262&coll=ap

Is Apple Internet Router (a program I cannot find) something that will make this happen? I'm still assuming I can't get internet through localtalk on my Classic but I read this in the link

The Apple Internet Router can interconnect all types of AppleTalk networks, including:

* LocalTalk

* Ethernet

* Token Ring

I'm guessing this is only for file sharing and print :?:

 

[mcdermd]

Right. When Apple talks about "internet" there, it is not "The Internet". They simply mean an inter-mixed network on which you can perform AppleShare functions. There were some hardware appliances to do the same sorts of things, such as the Cayman Systems GatorBox which would bridge LocalTalk and Ethernet networks (I should have kept mine).

 

[spiceyokooko]

...I'm still assuming I can't get internet through localtalk on my Classic

No you can't, at least not down LocalTalk.

LocalTalk is simply the physical layer in Apple's AppleTalk file protocol, you need to talk IP (Internet Protocol) down a suitable physical layer that can carry that protocol - ethernet, 10 Base T (twisted pair wiring) being the most obvious choice.

The Apple Internet Router you mention only routes AppleTalk, not IP and is a software router.

So you need to get the Classic onto ethernet with EtherTalk and TCP/IP.

 

[spiceyokooko]

There were some hardware appliances to do the same sorts of things, such as the Cayman Systems GatorBox which would bridge LocalTalk and Ethernet networks (I should have kept mine).

I've still got mine, well a Cayman GatorRouteIR which can bridge three different networks and route three different protocols - still haven't found a use for it mind!

 

[mcdermd]

I'd use mine to bridge my Ethernet deficient Macs to the 10bt hub that my Ethernet enabled Macs sit on so they can all AppleShare between one another without having to switch on my SE/30 running LocalTalk bridge software.

 

[FlyingToaster]

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I'll keep an eye out for some hardware to achieve that.

 

[spiceyokooko]

I'll keep an eye out for some hardware to achieve that.

I can't really think of any other way you can achieve what you want without implementing Ethernet and TCP/IP on the classic or SE30. If the options were available to you, the simplest way of doing it would be to hook up a modem to the Classic and TCP/IP or Open Transport and get a dial up connection to an ISP. If you wanted to use your existing connection, you'd have to put either machine onto Ethernet and hook that into a hub connected to your router.

If you simply wanted to share files between your Ethernet/internet machines and localtalk ones, your G3 Powebook 'may' (depending on the model) be able to act as a gateway machine between the two as from memory the G3 Powerbook has both ethernet and serial connections. Ethernet could connect to the ethernet machines and serial to the LocalTalk machines switching between them in the AppleTalk control panel.

There's a number of ways to go, which one is right depends on what you want to do.