Can you connect two PowerPC iMacs with a Ethernet cable.

[Angelgreat]

Imagine you have a iMac G3 tray loader (Macintosh A) and a Airport Extreme equipped iMac G4/eMac (Macintosh B). Is it possible to connect two Macs with a Ethernet cable so that Macintosh A can use the Wireless Airport abilities of Macintosh B?

 

[Cory5412]

Yes, with appletalk set to ethernet, they'll just see each other.

With IP, you'll have to configure addresses by hand. I believe iMacs do auto-MDIX, but ethernet switches are very very inexpensive. If you need them both on wifi, just get a home router that has client mode and connect both Macs to the LAN ports. Then you don't have to deal with running an insecure or 802.11b/g network.

 

[Cory5412]

I'd need to double check on the "connection sharing" front but again I recommend against that, to be honest, for logistical and convenience reasons.

 

[LaPorta]

You can share a network connection like that in OS X. However, without a hub, I think you need an ethernet crossover cable if you are going direct Mac to Mac.

 

[MOS8_030]

You can share a network connection like that in OS X. However, without a hub, I think you need an ethernet crossover cable if you are going direct Mac to Mac.

A crossover cable will work for sure, however a regular cable may also work without a hub,
At some point Apple started using ethernet hardware that would auto-sense the connection.

 

[Gorgonops]

If at least one of the two macs has Gigabit ethernet then it supports auto-MDX, IE, no crossover cable needed.

Looking at the specs both the iMac and the eMac were 10/100. Now there *are* 10/100 ethernet MACs (Media Access Controllers, not "macintoshes") that also support auto-MDX; I seem to have this vague memory that Apple may have used them on at least some of the later iBooks so they could also do the Internet Sharing thing, but I have no idea if the eMac supports it, it's not exactly easy to Google. You probably won't fry anything by just trying it.