What should I do with this?

[LaPorta]

A friend gifted me this Pi. I have not the slightest idea how/what I should do with this thing. I don’t know how they work or what this one would be suited for. Something Mac-related is what I’m looking for, of course.

What would you guys do with it?

View attachment IMG_5639.jpeg

 

[robin-fo]

Netatalk AppleShare file server or PiSCSI

 

[joshc]

MacIP.net

MacIP protocol

macip.net

 

[cheesestraws]

yeah, the macip rpi image might be a fun thing to play with.

Also, you could get one of @tashtari's hats and use tashrouter to build your own localtalk to ethernet gateway, or some such

 

[LaPorta]

So, let's assume I havent even the faintest idea how to turn this thing on, let alone how to program it (all of that is true).

What different functions do Netatalk and MacIP fulfill? What are the benefits of one over the other? Would one be able to fill the function of allowing Everything from System 6 to modern Macs connect to it (which I have two servers for currently)?

 

[cheesestraws]

The stuff available from macip.net is basically a pre-made appliance with netatalk and everything already set up ready to use. You just put it onto an SD card and go. Netatalk is the underlying software that that appliance uses to make it work.

 

[LaPorta]

Ok, I will certainly give this a go. Does all this work as a file server that the machines can connect to?

 

[Forrest]

The Raspberry Pi is an inexpensive single board computer that has lots of GPIO pins and runs Linux. The RPi uses a MicroSD card as disk storage. Using a modern PC or Mac, you install the Raspian OS onto a MicroSD card (8 GB or larger) using the Raspberry Pi Imager program https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/

Another common use of a Raspberry Pi is to run RetroPie to do retro gaming, including many 8-bit to 32-bit consoles or computers, including emutating a Mac from the original 128K thru a PPC Mac from the original OS thru OS9 https://retropie.org.uk/ I‘ll admit it’s a bit tricky setting up the Mac emulation.

 

[joshc]

Ok, I will certainly give this a go. Does all this work as a file server that the machines can connect to?

Yes

 

[dochilli]

A2SERVER is an alternative to macip. But if you want it to use it as a file server then you need a localtalk to ethernet bridge. I use both and the A2SERVER can be seen from my windows PC. Makes it easy to download files from the internet and copy them to a mac in the localtalk net.

If you like emulators:
MiniVMac (mac emulator) can be run on a pi.

 

[LaPorta]

Actually, is there a way to additionally make this some sort of bridge so I can print from my classic networked Macs to my modern Brother laser printer?

 

[Snial]

A friend gifted me this Pi. I have not the slightest idea how/what I should do with this thing. I don’t know how they work or what this one would be suited for. Something Mac-related is what I’m looking for, of course.

What would you guys do with it?

View attachment 77466

PI-3 is pretty good! It's useful as a dinky Linux computer. It's useful for hacking around with Linux and direct I/O, since it has plenty of GPIOs. You can do direct serial on it, so you could run a Mac emulator on the PI and get it to talk to a real Mac. I've used one for interfacing to HFS disks, both physical HDs via USB or Zip disks, or just HFS images.

Also, you can pop different OS's on different SD cards and thereby switch OS's pretty easily. You can afford to trash an OS while experimenting. You can create a mini, fake classic Mac (I think Action Retro did this). It's got Wifi. I use my PI-3 as a Wifi-Ethernet bridge. Yep, pretty useful IMHO.

 

[robin-fo]

Actually, is there a way to additionally make this some sort of bridge so I can print from my classic networked Macs to my modern Brother laser printer?

Yes, Netatalk allows you to do this (as long as you have drivers for linux of course). Just make sure you have CUPS installed before you compile Netatalk. Maybe some distributions like A2Server or MacIPpi have this enabled by default..

You can then use the normal LaserWriter driver on your Macs.