NuBus LocalTalk cards?

[robin-fo]

Hi everybody,

Are there any NuBus expansion cards that support LocalTalk? The CSI Hurdler card looks promising, but I cannot find much information about it..

Thanks!

 

[mg.man]

This guy has two for sale. Here's one of them...

CSI Hurdler II HDS/HQS Mac Serial 4 port NuBus Card Apple Macintosh II 1993 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for CSI Hurdler II HDS/HQS Mac Serial 4 port NuBus Card Apple Macintosh II 1993 at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products.

www.ebay.co.uk

 

[ArmorAlley]

Hi @robin-fo, do you want to be able to print to a printer and use LocalTalk networking simultaneously?
Is the purpose of this card to avoid having to use a serial-connection switcher. I have one of the latter, if you want it.
That being said, GBP50 is not a bad price for the Hurdler II card.

 

[robin-fo]

Thanks guys, the purpose of such a card would be to use it in combination with the Apple Internet Router software to build independent LocalTalk networks. Even if a standard Mac supports both modem- and printer port for LocalTalk networking (only with the AIR of course), having more than just two ports would be interesting to tinker with..

 

[robin-fo]

This guy has two for sale. Here's one of them...

CSI Hurdler II HDS/HQS Mac Serial 4 port NuBus Card Apple Macintosh II 1993 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for CSI Hurdler II HDS/HQS Mac Serial 4 port NuBus Card Apple Macintosh II 1993 at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products.

www.ebay.co.uk

Let‘s see how it turns out: I bought it!

 

[mg.man]

I bought it!

Oh good... I was worried I might be tempted... just because...

 

[chelseayr]

offtopic but you know, this thread reminds me of finding this http://megawolf.com a few years ago and I have to admit I have never ever seen a serial card on ebay whether for nubus or pci..at least till this particular nubus one now
(same can be said for a certain orangemicro serial+fastscsi combo pci too?)

 

[mg.man]

offtopic but you know

Well... since you started it... I don't know about "fast SCSI", but are you meaning one of these?

 

[chelseayr]

@mg.man heh I never thought one could actually exist and yes thats the card. fast scsi because its suppose to be 10mbs instead of 5mbs as mentioned at http://archive.retro.co.za/mirrors/68000/www.vintagemacworld.com/omweb/grappler+serial.html

 

[Melkhior]

Let‘s see how it turns out: I bought it!

Please share a dump of the declaration rom if you can, in particular if the ports work without any additional driver. It would be interesting to know what is needed to get a new localtalk-compatible serial port working in a NuBus card.

 

[mg.man]

yes thats the card. fast scsi because its suppose to be 10mbs instead of 5mbs

But didn't most Macs have 10mbs SCSI by the time PCI came 'round?

Also spotted this in the ad you linked :
- Does not support AppleTalk or GeoPort

...so not that useful in this case. Apols to the OP for the tangent, but hope that Hurdler works out!

 

[robin-fo]

Please share a dump of the declaration rom if you can, in particular if the ports work without any additional driver. It would be interesting to know what is needed to get a new localtalk-compatible serial port working in a NuBus card.

I have a TL866.. Actually, I think this card might not be extremely difficult to replicate! We could convert the design to SMD and use the free space for something like an AirTalk or so

 

[Melkhior]

I have a TL866.. Actually, I think this card might not be extremely difficult to replicate! We could convert the design to SMD and use the free space for something like an AirTalk or so

You don't even need any special tool; the ROM are directly accessible to MacOS when the board is in a Mac (and everything works). It's merely a matter of reading the proper addresses and dumping to a file. I don't have a specific piece of software, but someone on 68kmla is bound to have. There's collections of extracted ROM floating around such as from @demik pn GitHub, and people doing reverse engineering or restoration commonly extract ROMs.
I have written my own ROM, but I haven't actually ever dumped one, weirdly. Found all the examples I needed from 68kmla!

 

[jeremywork]

Here are the ROMs from the CSI Hurdler Quad Serial, Hustler Dual Serial, Centronics Parellel, and another quad serial card called the VersaLink from Advanced Logic Integrations.
dumped via TL866II plus FWIW

 

[Melkhior]

Thanks

 

[robin-fo]

Well let‘s see how it turns out
I‘ll break the seal in 3…2…1…

 

[robin-fo]

Ok bad news.. The CSI Hurdler does not show up in Chooser, Network cdev or AIR. However, it seems to be compatible with MacPPP and ZTerm. With OpenTransport, it is also not listed in the PPP and AppleTalk control panels.

 

[jeremywork]

The technical data sheet lists "• Interface to LocalTalk and other networks" under Applications, so it should be possible?

Flyers: Hurdler II Ad-On Boards (Sheets) from Creative Solutions : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Flyers: Hurdler II Ad-On Boards (Sheets) from Creative Solutions

archive.org

 

[robin-fo]

The technical data sheet lists "• Interface to LocalTalk and other networks" under Applications, so it should be possible?

Flyers: Hurdler II Ad-On Boards (Sheets) from Creative Solutions : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Flyers: Hurdler II Ad-On Boards (Sheets) from Creative Solutions

archive.org

Well that‘s interesting.. But on the same page, they also write

The 68008 may be custom programmed to handle unique, higher performance end-user applications such as MIDI, process automation and networking.

So I guess I have to do the coding myself?!?

 

[Byte Knight]

Ok bad news.. The CSI Hurdler does not show up in Chooser, Network cdev or AIR. However, it seems to be compatible with MacPPP and ZTerm. With OpenTransport, it is also not listed in the PPP and AppleTalk control panels.

I'm thinking about getting one of these cards. Where were you able to find the drivers?