MacIPpi - Surf the Internet on your old Macintosh with TCP/IP over LocalTalk

[DLudwig255]

Hello all,

I've been spending the past few months getting a Quadra 605 up and running, and on the Internet via MacIPpi, but have yet to have luck.  I've tried booting MacIPpi off of a Raspberry Pi 3 B, but no luck.  The device never boots, nor shows anything on-screen.  Non-MacIPpi SD cards do work on the device.

I am thinking my next step will be to try running on an Orange Pi Zero, rather than a Raspberry Pi 3 B.

While I wait for a new board to come in, has anyone had any luck getting a Raspberry Pi, any model, up and running with MacIPpi?

Side-note: the Quadra 605 is, otherwise, running quite nicely.  It's nice to have a working System 7 machine, again.  

 
Cheers!

 

[mactjaap]

Hi DLudwig255

I see it is your first post to the forum. Welcome!

Two things:

1) How nice of you to try the MacIPpi project. But I think you are making a mistake. MacIPpi runs on a Orange Pi (One, Zero or PC). Not on a Raspberry Pi ( yet...)

So as I write on my web site:

If you don’t have an Orange Pi, have a look at my other project “MacIPgw VM”, a software solution with the same possibilities.

Download at: http://www.macip.net/

Nowadays you can also use a ISO so you can use an old 86x machine. See http://www.macip.net/?page_id=250

2) If you have a Quadra 605 it will have an Ethernet card. Doesn't it? Or do you use a LocalTalk bridge?

Please let me know if you have any question.

 

[DLudwig255]

1) How nice of you to try the MacIPpi project. But I think you are making a mistake. MacIPpi runs on a Orange Pi (One, Zero or PC). Not on a Raspberry Pi ( yet...)

Nowadays you can also use a ISO so you can use an old 86x machine. See http://www.macip.net/?page_id=250

Yeah... I had the Raspberry Pi already laying around, doing nothing. I figured giving it a shot might be worth it, given that I had heard the Orange Pis had some amount of RPi compatibility. I gave setting up a bootable SD card a few tries, including doing some repartitioning, but never quite got it going. The documentation on RPi booting seemed a bit odd: some bits were easy to find docs on, but not the whole, or at least enough, as far as I could tell.

I also tried an Orange Pi Zero, but had trouble getting the video going.

I considered using a VM for file hosting, but didn't like the idea of having to either add a beefy-enough system to power it, nor the idea of using up a few GB on my main system. That all being said, had I had this earlier, I might've used it, at least to get the Quadra up and running. (I ended up using an emulator instead, copying stuff to an SD card, which got installed via a SCSI2SD board.)

In the end, for networking, I ended up using the Raspberry Pi, and installing software onto it manually (on top of a stock, Raspbian installation). It took a few hours of fiddling to Netatalk running, and the machine's overall install is still missing a few features that I'd like to have, but it does most of what it to do: allow for easy, Finder-compatibile, file sharing between my Quadra and my modern MacBook (running OS X Sierra/10.12).

Any which way, thanks for setting this up, and for documenting it! Seeing what it uses was a help for me!

 

[patatas]

Pinned post in Hacks & Development:

Networking a classic Mac via serial port -> OS X /unix /Linux -> internet

This uses a USB-serial adapter, but a TTL-RS232 off the Pi's GPIO should be approximately similar.

seems link does not work....

 

[Sunoo]

seems link does not work....

Pretty sure this is it: 

 

[lisa2]

www.MacIP.net!

Just got my MacIPpi setup working this week and it's seems that MacIP.net is down.  I know that mactjaap (I think this is the owner) watches these boards, hopefully this is temporary, lot's of good information on his site.

Rick 

 

[mactjaap]

Back online again! Thanks for letting me know!

 

[lisa2]

Back online again! Thanks for letting me know!

Yes, MacIP.net is back working now.  This is a very useful tool, Thank you!

Rick

 

[mactjaap]

Happy to hear that!

I’m working on a site update but forgot to put it on again. Due to VPS backup it is sometimes down between 2 and 3 CET. 

 

[mactjaap]

Site is back online 24/7. 

 

[sixsevenco]

Hi mactjaap! 

I loaded your solution on a VM on an old laptop, and it worked great.  Because of this, I wanted to move to a more dedicated solution, and I ordered an OrangePi from AliExpress.  The United States Post Office ended up not being able to deliver my order for some reason, and it was returned to the seller in china.  It was a big hassle.

I am very appreciative and thankful for your work on this.  I imagine that you've created this because you're a fellow enthusiast.  I also imagine that you have competing interests, like work, family, etc...    With humility and respect, I am wondering if there is there any chance you could also support the more standard Raspberry Pi?  I think pretty much everyone in the world can get these easily, without the hassle of ordering directly from China.

Thanks for your consideration and for your great work!

 

[mactjaap]

Hi Sixsevenco,

Thank you very much for your nice words about my project. I know that there is not exactly a big market for this solution...but if you need it...it is nice to have it around!

If you don’t have a Orange Pi the VM or iso is a good solution.

You definitely got me thinking about the Raspberry Pi. I know it is more common.
I started with the Orange Pi because it is really very cheap. $9.99
I will think about it!

I’m happy you will like to try it. If you PM me your details I will ask somebody to send you an Orange Pi for free.

 

[sixsevenco]

mactjaap, I've been playing with the VM using VirtualBox.  My host machine is an old Windows 7 laptop.  I would like to be able to use the modern browser on my host PC to download stuff for my Mac. I think this means that I need to have some form of a shared folder between my W7 Host and the Ubuntu guest.  I'm a moderate noob when it comes to anything linux.  Would the best approach be to create a samba share in linux and map that as a network drive on my host PC?  Or is there another way?  Any guidance you can provide is greatly appreciated! 

 

[mactjaap]

@sixsevenco

You are reading my mind...
In my development version of the MacIPPi I have implemented Samba. So you can then use any form of file sharing:

AppleShare

FTP

SCP

Windows mounts/ Samba

 

[sixsevenco]

Awesome!  I'm looking forward to the next version. 

If you're looking for ideas, I've got another for you too.    Would it be possible to implement a network printer server?  YEARS ago (15-20) I vaguely remember using an NT 4.0 workstation as a print server for my PowerMac 7500.  Good times!!!

 

[sixsevenco]

I was able to get Samba working on the VM!  (3.0 minimal)  It's SOOO much nicer to download files on the host machine and copy them directly to the AppleShare folder on the VM.

I've also done a bit of searching on printing.  It looks like Netatalk supports Appletalk printing and can even work with printers set up via CUPS.  Not sure if this is on your radar, but it could be great addition.  I may play with it a bit and see if I can get it to work.  I can ping my network printer from the VM, so that's a good start.  Even if I can get the printer setup on the VM via Netatalk/AppleTalk, I'm not sure what printer driver to use on my Classic II.  Any thoughts?

This may be useful:

https://www.tldp.org/LDP/lame/LAME/linux-admin-made-easy/netatalk-file-and-print.html

 

[Gorgonops]

A standard CUPS installation on most modern Linux-i supports automatic translation of Postscript jobs (regardless of the native language of your physical printer; Postscript has been the de-facto language output by WYSIWYG UNIX programs for decades.). Assuming that's working on your CUPS installation you should be able to use the regular LaserWriter/Laserwriter Plus drivers.

It's been ages since I last set up NetaTalk printing but I don't recall it being particularly difficult. Just make sure that your basic CUPS infrastructure is working and autofiltering Postscript *before* you get started so you're only troubleshooting one thing at once.

Note also that strictly speaking if you're running System 7-something or later you can share directly to an LPR/LPD TCP printer without bothering with Appletalk. Here's a rundown on how to create a "Desktop Printer" pointing to LPR using a utility included in one of the Apple Laserwriter driver updates:

http://main.system7today.com/articles/tutorials/osxprintsharing.html

The article focuses on System 7.6.1, but I know I've done this from 7.5.5, at least.

 

[NJRoadfan]

One may also want to consider the generic AdobePS printer driver for System 7 as well. It supports PPDs and even color printing out of the box.

 

[mactjaap]

The MacIPpi solutions are mostly used for bridging TCP/IP over AppleTalk. But it becomes more and more a swiss pocket knive for networking with old Macintosh.

So adding samba, PPP and even printing, etc. could be nice goal for future versions. I never ever printed form old Macintosh to modern printers, so it is a little bit off my confprt zone. But I will test.

 

[agg24]

@mactjaap, what did you do to set up the tunnel and NAT? I am attempting to run your VirtualBox image on my ESXi (VMware) cluster, but am encountering some issues. The ESXi network interface ended up recognized as a different interface in Debian and wasn't connecting to anything, but that was easily resolved. Now I am attempting to figure out how you set up the NAT, but it doesn't appear you used iptables.