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Help setting up Ethernet with an SE/30

davidg5678

Well-known member
On the nic is there a switch?

on the back
Nope. Unfortunately, the issue with this network card is that the RJ45 jack was never connected to anything at all. There is some sort of additional part that is needed for it to work that I do not have installed. I am going to try using coax instead, as I should have a better shot at getting it to work with what I have. I did read that on some models of network card there is a switch that would toggle between the different ports, which would be very useful if only they were all hooked up. :-(

I just have to wait for my new equipment to arrive before I can try things out...

 

SE30_Neal

Well-known member
I believe some of the cards did have the RJ45 part as an optional extra as it wasn’t a standard back then so maybe you have one of those.  Mine doesn’t even have an RJ45 connector I needed to use a twisted pair transceiver to convert the 15 pin connector to RJ45. Beyond that it is only half duplexing too so it wouldn’t work on my fibre broadband without a separate switch box and I didn’t see the switch on the rusty back plate so It took me 6 months to actually get Mine networked and online. It wasn’t an easy task for a novice like me if it wasn’t for the guys on here I probably would never got it working. Picture of my connectors below.

View attachment B46C083A-AC33-4C00-93AC-01389123DBCC.jpeg

 
Last edited by a moderator:

davidg5678

Well-known member
With a few slight modifications, I finally got my SE/30 on the internet! This endeavor was quite an adventure and it took a lot of research, along with lots of trial and error.

Here's how I did it:

Because the RJ45 Ethernet Port on my MacCon SE 30/E is not actually connected to anything, I used the Coaxial Thinnet Port instead. In order to connect the Thinnet port to my home network, I used a media converter called the "3com OfficeConnect Hub 8C". This media converter has a socket for a Thinnet BNC cable on one end and a series of ethernet ports on the other end. I plugged an ethernet cable into the eighth port on the converter and set it to the uplink mode by pressing a switch located next to it. I plugged the other end of the ethernet cable into my home network.

I found that even when running a Thinnet connection from just one SE/30 to the 3com hub, without Thinnet terminators the system does not recognize anything as connected. Because of this lack of terminators, I was stuck with a yellow "Coax Status" light on my hub. Luckily, I was able to purchase a miscellaneous lot of Thinnet terminators on eBay for a low price. These terminators are nothing more than resistors that tell the system where a computer is located. I placed a terminator at both the hub and computer, and immediately, the "Coax Status" light on my hub went green.

After everything was wired up correctly, I configured the software on my SE/30. I am running System 7.1, and I have installed MacTCP 2.1 on the computer. In the Network control panel, I selected EtherTalk, but in the MacTCP control panel, I selected Ethernet. I configured MacTCP as follows:

Obtain Address: Manually

Router Address: (IP Address of my home router ex. 10.0.0.1)

Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0

Domain Name Server Information:

     Domain: .  (I just put a period here)

     IP Address: (I used the IP Address of Google's free DNS, 8.8.8.8)

IP Address (this is the computer's IP Address, not the DNS's or router's): (On my phone, I used a free network scanner app called "Fing" to find an unused IP Address on my network, and then typed that in to manually assign an IP Address. ex. 10.0.0.88)

With these settings in place, I launched NCSA Telnet, and I connected to www.telehack.com!

cqa-i_wi4OYg6OTaE4hTyrbOSWn5hENSiCQGSl-rbQPVlqTs5bctvlxiGYaK828C_t5vPj6-W4oS5NShVpPzKNZ9kezkwJ...jpg

 

Byte Knight

Well-known member
Nice!  Now you can telnet to BBS's and FTP to Macintosh Garden's massive file library with Fetch.

The ultimate is to set up A2SERVER to serve files for your SE/30 and other old Macs, your IIgs (with Uthernet II card), and even your modern Mac.

 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
without Thinnet terminators the system does not recognize anything as connected. Because of this lack of terminators, I was stuck with a yellow "Coax Status" light on my hub
Thanks for this information, I'll remember that if I ever need to use thinnet.

 
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