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internet on a mac performa 630cd

 I picked up a Mac Performa 630cd that was being thrown away and it works great. Anyway I bought a Farallon Apple Macintosh ETHERMAC LC PDS ETHERNET 10BaseT Card P/N 8960712-00-04 card and installed it. I get the green light on the card with a Ethernet cable installed and installed the drivers from the disk supplied but after that I am lost. Anyone have an idea how to get this working? Another question I have since I have no browser for it, how to I go about getting a browser installed since even if I get on the internet I have no idea how I could download anything without a browser?

 

LaPorta

Well-known member
First, what System version is this machine using? You need certain System files and revisions to even get on the internet. Some version of Open Transport is needed. After that, then, yes, finding a compatible web browser, probably from Macintosh Garden, would then be my choice for what to do and how to start.

 
I have MacOS 7.5.5 installed, I found the Open Transport on the Performa after I did the install. The problem is how to download it on the computer? Is the ethernet running on the computer? 

 

LaPorta

Well-known member
Ethernet, if the extensions are installed, just works. You need to open the TCP/IP control panel, and configure the TCP settings for your internet router.

 

MrFahrenheit

Well-known member
Most modern network routers and switches use autonegotiate, which doesn't seem to recognize many (if not all) older Mac NICs.  Like the one in your 630.  To use that machine on your network, you need a middleman device, like an older hub/switch or an old router.

 

LaPorta

Well-known member
That is true. On some finicky ones, I’ve used an AirPort Express second gen and that works fine (if you are needing wireless). Works well with my MacCon SE.

 

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
Like the one in your 630.


Do we know for sure that the mentioned NIC in the OP, which was:

ETHERMAC LC PDS ETHERNET 10BaseT Card P/N 8960712-00-04

has this problem?

I've had a handful of LCPDS NICs over the years and none of the others I've ever seen had this problem in particular.

We discussed this in another thread, have we got a list going of which specific NICs have this problem? If not, we should start one, there's a recently-updated thread in the MLA wiki ideas article where this should be mentioned as well.

Depending on what other stuff OP has around, there are ways to test whether or not this is the problem. For example, if OpenTransport is installed, DHCP should work therein. If not, and they've got something running AppleTalk on their network, it'll appear in Chooser once AppleTalk is switched over to Ethernet.

With the magic of VMs, (such as the macipGW VM, or the a2server VM) it's easy to have something AppleTalk showing up on your network. You can then use appletalk file sharing to transfer the opentransport installer to the 630.

 

MrFahrenheit

Well-known member
Do we know for sure that the mentioned NIC in the OP, which was:

ETHERMAC LC PDS ETHERNET 10BaseT Card P/N 8960712-00-04

has this problem?

I've had a handful of LCPDS NICs over the years and none of the others I've ever seen had this problem in particular.

We discussed this in another thread, have we got a list going of which specific NICs have this problem? If not, we should start one, there's a recently-updated thread in the MLA wiki ideas article where this should be mentioned as well.

Depending on what other stuff OP has around, there are ways to test whether or not this is the problem. For example, if OpenTransport is installed, DHCP should work therein. If not, and they've got something running AppleTalk on their network, it'll appear in Chooser once AppleTalk is switched over to Ethernet.

With the magic of VMs, (such as the macipGW VM, or the a2server VM) it's easy to have something AppleTalk showing up on your network. You can then use appletalk file sharing to transfer the opentransport installer to the 630.
We never went further than me mentioning I’ve had problems and referring to others on the net who have had problems, and then others here saying they have not ever had any problems. I have a good variety of hardware I can test with but I just don’t have the time to do so until probably May. 

 

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
If/when you have time, definitely start writing stuff down on this front -- unless we can find another resources where someone has already written down what cards do/don't do this and then re-test as time permits to sanity check.

In any case, because most LCPDS cards post-date the SEPDS and NuBus cards that have this problem, at absolute worst, OP can consider buying another LCPDS card, if there's no way to to any of the other tests (putting an appletalk node on the network, even if it doesn't provide any compatible services (10.4/10.5 fall into this realm for example)).

 

joshc

Well-known member
To use that machine on your network, you need a middleman device, like an older hub/switch or an old router.
This has not been the case with any of my Macs, including a MacCon card in an SE/30 and Farallon EtherMac cards in LCs, both of which I use with a modern router.

If DHCP doesn't work then you just have to manually set the IP, subnet and router addresses in TCP/IP and then you should be up and running.
 

Anyone have an idea how to get this working?


This page is the go-to place for how to get networking set up on old Macs: https://www.applefool.com/se30/

 

MrFahrenheit

Well-known member
This has not been the case with any of my Macs, including a MacCon card in an SE/30 and Farallon EtherMac cards in LCs, both of which I use with a modern router.

If DHCP doesn't work then you just have to manually set the IP, subnet and router addresses in TCP/IP and then you should be up and running.
 

This page is the go-to place for how to get networking set up on old Macs: https://www.applefool.com/se30/


Going to the site as you posted it does not work.  The proper link is:

http://www.applefool.com/se30/

On that site, there is this text:

Some routers will not work with the 10BASE-T 10Mbps interface that these machines use (both a Farallon iPrint LT and a UltraDock 16sce were identified in a router control window as using 10Mbps half-duplex mode). This can be avoided by either using a 10Mbps switch between them, or using an Ethernet cross-over cable if only two computers are involved. However, a router can be advantageous due to its ability to permit all units to access the Internet, and the author observed greater stability with a router rather than a cross-over cable.


I'm not crazy, and I'm not alone.

 

joshc

Well-known member
Going to the site as you posted it does not work.
Thanks. My browser is set to automatically go to HTTPS so it must've retained that link instead, oops.

I'm not crazy, and I'm not alone.
I never said you were crazy, and I never said that this doesn't happen to anyone. I know it does, as you said it does...

I linked to the Applefool page because it's a very useful guide for networking old Macs, and answers a lot of the questions asked in this thread very accurately.

I also thought it worth pointing out my experience (just as you did), because when you stated that "Most modern network routers and switches use autonegotiate, which doesn't seem to recognize many (if not all) older Mac NICs.", it makes it sound like that is usually the case, but for a lot of people, this would not be the case - because it depends on your router. So it would be more accurate to say "some modern network routers and switches won't recognise older Mac NICs" rather than "most" - that's all!

 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
So it would be more accurate to say "some modern network routers and switches won't recognise older Mac NICs" rather than "most" - that's all!


More accurate: ""some modern network routers and switches won't recognise some older Mac NICs".

Cargo-culting of networking is not restricted to the retrocomputing community, but it is certainly alive and well here, and in this thread.

I have already linked to the standards and explained why this happens multiple times, and I'm pretty sure I've gone into what to look for in cards to find ones that are more likely to be compatible (dates, kinds of interface).

This is not a difficult or obscure problem.  Importing anecdata and bitchiness from reddit has no engineering validity whatsoever.

 

MrFahrenheit

Well-known member
Thanks. My browser is set to automatically go to HTTPS so it must've retained that link instead, oops.

I never said you were crazy, and I never said that this doesn't happen to anyone. I know it does, as you said it does...

I linked to the Applefool page because it's a very useful guide for networking old Macs, and answers a lot of the questions asked in this thread very accurately.

I also thought it worth pointing out my experience (just as you did), because when you stated that "Most modern network routers and switches use autonegotiate, which doesn't seem to recognize many (if not all) older Mac NICs.", it makes it sound like that is usually the case, but for a lot of people, this would not be the case - because it depends on your router. So it would be more accurate to say "some modern network routers and switches won't recognise older Mac NICs" rather than "most" - that's all!


Okay, it's all good. 

I guess what I mean to say is, of those people who have issues connecting to a modern network, most issues are related to the autonegotiate bug I mention.  As in, to say, if 25% of people have issues getting TCP/IP working with a network connection, 90% of those issues are with the autonegotiate issue.  

Thanks for the linked page, I did download it as a PDF just in case I ever need to refer to it (it's 53 pages!)

 
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