Networking Color Classic to modern MacOS X

[Will Cheyney]

@mraroid There are two LED lights on the card, next to the Ethernet port. The top one flashes green when you plug an Ethernet cable in.

My router is a Netgear with IP address 10.0.0.1.

I don't know whether to use Classic networking of Open Transport. I can't get it connecting under either.



Below are some screenshots of the setup and settings used for classic networking.

MacTCP (version 2.1)





Network



Netscape error



And settings when using Open Transport Networking.

TCP/IP



AppleTalk

 

[mraroid]

Try classic first.

Your browser will not take you to google. You can not access google from your machine.  You need to manually type this into your web browser:

http//obsolete.macfixer.com/vintage-software/

Or

http://obsolete.maxfixer.com

You need to look in the manual for your network card to know if the correct lamps are showing.  I do not know this card.  Maybe others here do.

mraroid

 

[Will Cheyney]

@mraroid still no luck  :/

 

[mraroid]

Are the lights on your network card correct?

mraroid

 

[Will Cheyney]

@mraroid According to the manual a green LED (link integrity) light indicates a good connection to the hub.

But mine is a blinking GREEN LED, so I'm not sure.

 

[davidg5678]

Hello @Will Cheyney,

Once that's installed are you able to help me configure it so I can connect it to the internet and allow FTP transfer to/from the CC?

I'll do my best to help here. As you can tell, there are definitely a lot of different ways to go about connecting these computers to the internet. My best recommendation is to get something really simple working before trying more complex things.

I originally mentioned MacTCP as it is what I am more familiar with, but Open Transport should work for this too. (Classic networking means MacTCP) I don't think the brand of ethernet card you have installed should matter too much in terms of how things are configured though.

It looks like most of your settings are probably correct in both Open Transport and MacTCP. Do you know what the IP address of your router is? It is probably 10.0.0.1 or 192.168.1.1. Depending on what the IP address of your router is, many of the settings you will input to the Macintosh change. To find the address, you can type 192.168.1.1 and 10.0.0.1 into the address bar on your modern computer's web browser, and one of these IP addresses should bring you to your router configuration page while the other does nothing. (Assuming you already know that your address is 10.0.0.1, you will not need to change much on the Macintosh's settings, as what you have already may be correct.)

I noticed you input 0.0.0.0 as your DNS address. You may want to try 8.8.8.8 instead, as this will connect you to the Google domain name servers. (this could be the reason you had a DNS error before) I also noticed that you input 10.0.0.6 as your IP address. 6 is a fairly low number and might conflict with something else already on your home network. You could try a somewhat higher number and see if it helps too. (don't go above 255!)

I found using the web browser on my Macintosh to introduce an additional layer of complexity while troubleshooting, as it does not like the modern internet very much, and it becomes hard to tell what the root of problems are. Using Fetch or NCSA Telnet might make troubleshooting a little simpler.

A crossover ethernet cable should not be necessary. It is likely a good thing that you have a green light on your ethernet card, as it probably means that your Macintosh detects your router, to some extent.

Good Luck!

 

[Will Cheyney]

@davidg5678 @mraroid

The router IP address is 10.0.0.1 and I checked my in the control panel at the IP addresses of every other device on my network to ensure there was no clash with the .6 that I chose. The Color Classic doesn't ever show up in the connected devices list. I tried changing the DNS to 8.8.8.8 but still no luck.

I used an app that came with the cards driver software which monitors network traffic. When I attempted to connect to my web host via FTP you can it's trying to transmit something but not receiving anything back. 

 

 

[mraroid]

Did the software  for your network card  install just fne?  You are sure the software you are using can run under your OS and CPU?

 

[Will Cheyney]

Did the software  for your network card  install just fne?  You are sure the software you are using can run under your OS and CPU?

@mraroid It sure did. The manual has a section on how to install the card in the Color Classic so it is 100% compatible. It's also compatible with System 6 and 7.

The driver does a check when you install to ensure compatibility and that the necessary software is installed.

 

[mraroid]

 Sounds good.

Did you down load and install both Netscape and IE for your OS?  The site that I directed you to is made so that long outdated web browsers from our old Macs, can access the site.  I have a running list on this forum someplace of all the web sites you can still access.  I think 15 to 20 places are on the list.

When the web moved to Https://  and other modern web stuff, we were unable to access modern web sites with our older Macs.  But you can find many Mac related web sites like I directed you to, where you can directly surf to, and down load the files directly to your CC.

The one I posted is one of the best.  Off the top of my head, I also remember the System 7 web site:

http://main.system7today.com/

OK, I just found the thread.  Try looking over the sites listed here:





mraroid

 

[Realitystorm]

Some routers will not recognize these old 10Mbps cards.   My setup https://www.savagetaylor.com/2020/05/10/macplus-on-my-network-using-scsi-to-ethernet/

 

[mraroid]

Some routers will not recognize these old 10Mbps cards.   My setup https://www.savagetaylor.com/2020/05/10/macplus-on-my-network-using-scsi-to-ethernet/

Loved your web page and information.  Good stuff!

I saw this on your web page:

"DHCP assign range 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.255 (will not automatically assign IPs below 100)

I wonder if Will needs to change his DHCP to a higher number??

mraroid

 

[erichelgeson]

I just installed/did the same thing today on my color classic and got it working.

Fresh copy of 7.1

Installed Driver Disk that came with card. Reboot.

Installed open transport 1.3. Reboot.

Opened TCP/IP, manually set my IP address (I believe inaccurate time can have an effect on getting dhcp leases)

 - You can get the TCP/IP info from another machine on the network, just change the IP to something unused

Started Fetch, ftp'd to my laptop.

It can be as "simple" as that. I've learned to leave all the other networking control panels/etc alone.

 

[Will Cheyney]

Well I’ve tried all your advice. Even a fresh install of 7.1 using the method @erichelgeson mentioned. Nada. I think I’m going to cry  8-o

 

[Will Cheyney]

@mraroid this the router I’m connecting it to.

Specs state it’s Ethernet 10/100/1000 compatible  :angry:

https://www.netgear.co.uk/home/products/networking/wifi-routers/R8000.aspx

 

[mraroid]

It took me pulling all the hair out of my head before I could get my CC up and running on the network.  You might go to the search bar on this forum only,  and search for words like Network, or internet, etc.  The search function fails if you put two words in the search bar.  At least, that is my experience.  If I remember correctly, I got a solid green lamp on my network card before I configured my CC.  All I did was select ethernet, plug in the card and the cable to my router.  As yours is blinking, it may mean that your router and the CC can not see each other.  You could try posting a message to a Netgear forum and ask them what it means if the lamp is blinking.

Some modern routers do not work at all, but I do not know which ones.

You will enjoy it when it is working.  I love surfing the net from my CC.  But the old browses can only go to sites that are made for them (no Java, etc).

Let us know what you find out.

mraroid

 

[davidg5678]

It took me pulling all the hair out of my head before I could get my CC up and running on the network.

My experience was very similar. It took me hours and hours of work before I could get things functional with my computers. It was very satisfying once everything was working correctly. Don't give up!

Specs state it’s Ethernet 10/100/1000 compatible  :angry:

I used a slightly older, but very similar router from the same brand. Something I didn't mention before (as I am unsure whether or not they apply to your particular ethernet card) are ethernet speed auto-negotiation quirks. Vintage ethernet cards work at 10BaseT 10Mbps speed, while your modern router prefers 1000Mbps Gigabit speed. Sometimes the router and network card fail to establish a link with each other because the network card assumes everything works at 10Mbps speed. This problem can be circumnavigated by using a vintage 10 Mbps ethernet switch between the older computer and the modern network. Something like this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/3Com-3C16701-OfficeConnect-TPC-Ethernet-Hub-/113296653759?hash=item1a6101bdbf

@cheesestraws may have a better idea than me whether or not this is applicable to your problems. They recommended this to me a few months ago, and it eventually got my computers online.

Edit: If you haven't seen it already, I linked to my forum thread at the beginning of this thread. The last post I made there includes what I did to get things working, and much of that information likely applies to your computer too (in theory).

 

[mraroid]

This problem can be circumnavigated by using a vintage 10 Mbps ethernet switch between the older computer and the modern network. Something like this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/3Com-3C16701-OfficeConnect-TPC-Ethernet-Hub-/113296653759?hash=item1a6101bdbf

The price is right.  He is suppose to have a solid lamp, but it is blinking.

mraroid

 

[cheesestraws]

@cheesestraws may have a better idea than me whether or not this is applicable to your problems. They recommended this to me a few months ago, and it eventually got my computers online.

Well, it might well be.  Essentially: there is a process called autonegotiation, where two ethernet devices exchange information about what versions of Ethernet they support and what duplex settings they support.  This is mostly backwards-compatible, but some old network cards that implement the standard slightly off-kilter don't play nicely with it.

In these cases, if you don't have a managed switch, the easiest option is just to buy a reputable hub or 10mbit switch from the period.  They tend to implement autonegotiation properly for an uplink, but also are tolerant enough to speak kindly to misbehaving downstream machines.

In this case—I've never had an LC PDS ethernet card that has had this problem, but all my cards are the Apple ones, I don't have any third-party ones (not by design, that's just what I happened to end up with).  So other vendors may have held onto older chipsets for longer.

Worth a try, definitely, but not a guaranteed fix.

 

[Will Cheyney]

Thank you! I have a feeling in my gut that the communication between the card and the router is the issue. I'll get myself a 10mbit hub/switch and report back when I can.