Rethinking my bridge/server setup

[Corgi]

Does anyone know of a good way to save work on a classic mac that would then somehow seamlessly end up in iCloud? I have macs of all vintages… not sure what the oldest mac that can use iCloud Drive is. Thinking maybe some kind of synchronising software onto my new mac, I used to use one called Super File Synchoniser or something like that. Would be great to be able to access all my work without having to manually transfer stuff across and I’m sure I’d use my old macs a lot more if I could Do this

Yosemite was the first Mac OS to support iCloud Drive. I was able to use "Get Info" on a folder inside iCloud Drive, tick "Shared folder", and have it show up in File Sharing on Monterey. Theoretically it should work that way in Yosemite as well. Unfortunately, I believe Yosemite requires 10.1 or later to connect to its AFP shares, so you'd need a bridge computer of some sort. If you use a sync software on, say, a Tiger machine to sync between a share on it and the Yosemite share, you could probably go all the way back to SSW 7.5.3.

So this would mean: Tiger AFP has a shared location, say "iCloud", and your classic Macs put files on it. Tiger mounts the Yosemite iCloud share, and syncs files there.

 

[Hopfenholz]

Ok thanks. My powerpc might have to become the bridge machine then. Just a shame to have to fire up the G5 just to save files to the network share

 

[mikes-macs]

Mac OS X 10.4.7 is Universal. As in PPC or Intel.

 

[Corgi]

You know, I wonder if one could port netatalk to the Mac OS and have newer Macs share to older Macs. I might have something to add to my never-ending list of projects…

 

[Hopfenholz]

What's the newest OS X that a system 6/7 machine can see and share to? Is this all documented on the Applefool site?

 

[Corgi]

What's the newest OS X that a system 6/7 machine can see and share to? Is this all documented on the Applefool site?

Yes, it is all documented on that site.

tl;dr 7.5.3+ can do 10.4, otherwise 10.2. (This is why I want to set up a Jaguar server so badly.)

 

[mg.man]

It should also be possible to 'link to iCLoud' on a somewhat newer OS X... I followed the steps below to set up a share I could see from OS9 on my Mac Pro running 10.11...

Started with this :
- http://www.applefool.com/se30/#leopardfileserver

The text mentions up to 10.10, but as I said, I used the same method on 10.11 and it works fine! I assume it'd be possible to connect the shared folder on the 10.11 machine also to iCloud, but I've not tried. One thing to be mindful of, you need to stick to compressed (.sit, etc.) or img or iso type files, since the Resource Fork seems to get clobbered.

Looks like there was some more discussion back in 2011 :
https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/mac-os-10-7-lion-and-classic-macs.22434/

...and also this :

FileSharing/ScreenSharing between os9 and intel-Macs

Basically the idea to start this thread came from here ... https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/os9-late-osx-no-file-sharing-via-afp.2167422/ PS: Many thanks to all fellow MR-PPC-Forum members - without their genius help and advice things wouldn't have got so far by now --- I'd like to use...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[LaPorta]

Yes, it is all documented on that site.

tl;dr 7.5.3+ can do 10.4, otherwise 10.2. (This is why I want to set up a Jaguar server so badly.)

There is trickery that can be accomplished. With OT installed and a far newer AppleShare stolen from a newer system, my IIfx with 7.1.1 can connect to AppleShare over IP with my Quicksilver running 10.4.11 that has AppleTalk re-enabled. Can't connect to it with SE, though, because AppleShare over IP requires OT, and OT will not run on a 68000.

 

[cheesestraws]

You know, I wonder if one could port netatalk to the Mac OS and have newer Macs share to older Macs. I might have something to add to my never-ending list of projects…

netatalk relies on kernel AppleTalk support, so you'd have to come up with a packet-level AppleTalk stack too.

 

[LaPorta]

The ultimate solution would be for macOS 13 to just speak old AppleTalk, but I can’t imagine how complex that would be.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

Mac OS X 10.4.7 is Universal. As in PPC or Intel.

Sort of. I believe it was 10.4.3 that was the first Intel version. I do have a 10.4.7 Server install DVD which is universal (it boots PPC and Intel from the same DVD). The last non-server version of retail installation media was 10.4.6, which was not a universal install DVD. It was PPC-only.

From what I can tell, the only PPC/Intel universal install media for 10.4.x was the 10.4.7 Server DVD. There were machine-specific install media, which supported PPC or Intel, but they wouldn't boot or install to a machine that wasn't for them.

 

[robin-fo]

The ultimate solution would be for macOS 13 to just speak old AppleTalk, but I can’t imagine how complex that would be.

I'm currently writing an AppleTalk stack that runs on Monterrey. It is a lot of work!

 

[Corgi]

I'm currently writing an AppleTalk stack that runs on Monterrey. It is a lot of work!

That's great! If you need anyone to help you test it, I have so many different Macs with different CPUs and OSes.

 

[LaPorta]

Well, well: part one of the project arrived ahead of schedule:



I think it was a good buy. All this, and it’s not yellowed or dented…less than $100 shipped. Can’t wait for the SSD and extra RAM to show up.

 

[mikes-macs]

Sheep Shaver running Mac OS 9 can make for a nice bridge machine in a pinch. Using real networking via tun tap not Slirp, I've been able to manage success connecting to and from Mac SE with System Software 6. SheepShaver emulated Mac OS 9 will see your whole AppleTalk network. Since you really won't be accessing volumes larger than 2 Gigabytes with System Software 6, you'll need to make a series of disk image-archive volumes. I'm doing so on an intel Mac mini 2.53 GHz Server Model with 2 500 GB HDDs. It's nice if the SE doesn't have to do a bunch of decompressing just to obtain what you need, so there are ways to make the SheepShaver Mac OS 9 decompress what the SE user wants.

 

[ArmorAlley]

Well, well: part one of the project arrived ahead of schedule:

View attachment 48733

I think it was a good buy. All this, and it’s not yellowed or dented…less than $100 shipped. Can’t wait for the SSD and extra RAM to show up.

I got my 1417MHz Mac Mini G4 upgraded with a 512GB mSATA card and IDE-adapter over the weekend and IO is so much faster than the stock drive. Getting the case back on perfectly is hard though.

 

[ArmorAlley]

Also, replace the PRAM battery with a new CR2032 (I think it is).

 

[LaPorta]

Yes, thanks! I saw that in the tear down guide. This will be a one and done: going to clean, replace PRAM, replace RAM, and SSD install all while the case is open.

 

[Byte Knight]

Well, well: part one of the project arrived ahead of schedule:

I think it was a good buy. All this, and it’s not yellowed or dented…less than $100 shipped. Can’t wait for the SSD and extra RAM to show up.

Nice! They're good for hosting BBS's too.

 

[LaPorta]

I can't believe how clean this thing is inside. It looked good on the outside, but inside it looked like a virtually brand-new machine. There wasn't even dust on the fan! I can't imagine it saw much use at all. RAM upgraded, SSD installed, PRAM battery changed.

10.4 installation proceeding...