"Cheap Networking" for System 6 and 7 Macs

[SE30_Neal]

41 minutes ago, TechEdison said:

 

Fast enough to load the website I linked in less than 30 seconds... it’s 56k but can be up to the max that MacPPP supports. 

What is the max that macPPP supports?

[TechEdison]

Little over 200k I think. 

[SE30_Neal]

Happy Christmas everyone!!!  

 

thanks techedison

[PotatoFi]

On 12/24/2018 at 2:44 PM, SE30_Neal said:

I think the problem Potato was looking at was because these network cards or adaptors have now become silly expensive like most of these mac cards

Exactly. Sure, I can get a PDS ethernet card for just over $100, but I'm just not willing to spend that. I already had the Raspberry Pi Zero W laying around, so this modem-to-modem thing cost me less than $20. Being limited to 2400 baud was a disappointment that I didn't see coming though... I expected to be up in the kbps range. I think I'll check out the serial option that I check out next.

 

As for SCSI > Ethernet or SCSI > Wi-Fi adapters are concerned... I'm not sure which would be easier from an engineering standpoint, but Wi-Fi would be preferable to me. It's nice that my current setup works anywhere in the house.

[AwkwardPotato]

Is the 2400 baud max just a limitation of the Global Village modem, or is it an issue with the Pi Zero? I'd love to be able to do some BBS'ing with the authentic modem sounds on my Macs, but I don't think I can tolerate 2400 baud . 

[SE30_Neal]

I think you did great Potato! 

I believe the 2400 baud is the limitation of any serial connection on the old mac if ive read correctly but I’m no expert 

[SE30_Neal]

Is 2400 baud not ok for bulletin boards?

 

i noticed a shiva nic on eBay for £100 but not sure if it’s ok on the se

Edited December 27, 2018 by SE30_Neal

[PotatoFi]

19 hours ago, AwkwardPotato said:

Is the 2400 baud max just a limitation of the Global Village modem, or is it an issue with the Pi Zero? I'd love to be able to do some BBS'ing with the authentic modem sounds on my Macs, but I don't think I can tolerate 2400 baud . 

I'm pretty sure it's the Global Village modem, NOT the Pi Zero W. I can only connect to it at 2400 baud through MacPPP; it doesn't respond at any other speeds. Mine is a Global Village Teleport Bronze A861. I think there are Silver and Gold counterparts that are faster, like this one. Does anyone have a faster modem we can test?

16 hours ago, SE30_Neal said:

I think you did great Potato! 

I believe the 2400 baud is the limitation of any serial connection on the old mac if ive read correctly but I’m no expert 

TechKnight can chime in here.

13 hours ago, SE30_Neal said:

Is 2400 baud not ok for bulletin boards?

I haven't tried a BBS, but I have done some telnet with it and it is just fine! Watching Star Wars is painfully slow... but actual telnet stuff is certainly usable.

Edited December 27, 2018 by PotatoFi

[SE30_Neal]

12 minutes ago, PotatoFi said:

I'm pretty sure it's the Global Village modem, NOT the Pi Zero W. I can only connect to it at 2400 baud through MacPPP; it doesn't respond at any other speeds. Mine is a Global Village Teleport Bronze A861. I think there are Silver and Gold counterparts that are faster, like this one. Does anyone have a faster modem we can test?

TechKnight can chime in here.

I haven't tried a BBS, but I have done some telnet with it and it is just fine! Watching Star Wars is painfully slow... but actual telnet stuff is certainly usable.

That’s awesome though. When i get my room setup I’ll step up my efforts to get mine running as i have all the bits now, plus i really want to go on bulletin boards like you and have never tried telnet but heard of it.

I don’t have one of those I’m afraid, i brought a Hayes 56k one for about £15 or about $20 i an attempt to get mine online, i only used it twice as i really wanted my network card working and it was slow.  Does seem strange you’re limited to 2400 baud though, maybe its a software thing, ie an updated driver needed? 

Edited December 27, 2018 by SE30_Neal

[AwkwardPotato]

1 hour ago, PotatoFi said:

I'm pretty sure it's the Global Village modem, NOT the Pi Zero W. I can only connect to it at 2400 baud through MacPPP; it doesn't respond at any other speeds.

Sounds great then! I have a US Robotics 28.8K modem that I'm going to try on some of my machines once I get the rest of the required materials.

[PotatoFi]

Oh cool, you're gunna give it a go? We might be able to achieve a world record for "Highest amount of potatoes from one forum who have used one modem to dial another modem that is connected to a Raspberry Pi".

 

Now watch out... only putting 5v of voltage on the line worked for my Global Village modem, but it did not work for the 56k modem on my iMac G3. A Pololu 5v to 9v step-up converter should fit in the modem, and should fix this. I plan to buy one and integrate it.

Edited December 28, 2018 by PotatoFi

[PotatoFi]

So one other complaint I have about this setup is that my Mac's IP range is wildly different from my network.

• Macintosh SE: 193.81.130.98
• "Gateway Address": 192.168.1.98
• ppp0 on Raspberry Pi: 192.168.1.99
• wlan0 on Raspberry Pi: 192.168.1.31

I'm not sure if that matters. It's probably necessary, but I don't really like it. I wish there was one IP for my Raspberry Pi, and one for my Macintosh. Part of what I don't like about using DreamPi is that it was set up by someone else, so I don't understand it.

[SE30_Neal]

Haha

[PotatoFi]

I think this falls into the discussion in this thread. SE30_Neal DM'ed me about these Farallon SCSI cards for $30 on eBay. I'd need to hunt down a power supply and SCSI cable. Anyone have experience with these? Any good?

[nglevin]

"4 sold in 24 hours! Only 3 remaining."

 

You uh, might want to jump on that. Now. 

 

Farallon products are generally pretty good.

[SE30_Neal]

it would give you faster internet on your SE once setup

[PotatoFi]

I ended up buying one. I'm going to move discussion about the Farallon adapter to this thread to keep this one more on-topic about 56k dial-in and serial methods (which I am probably not done with yet).

[WakelessFoil]

I have the dreampi setup on my Macintosh plus. I use macweb 2.0 and it works and loads pages but won’t load websites unless I use the IP address of the site. It also won’t read domain names. Also I would like to set up a proxy to get rid of all the css and stuff. Any suggestions?

[LaPorta]

1 hour ago, WakelessFoil said:

I have the dreampi setup on my Macintosh plus. I use macweb 2.0 and it works and loads pages but won’t load websites unless I use the IP address of the site. It also won’t read domain names. Also I would like to set up a proxy to get rid of all the css and stuff. Any suggestions?

Sounds like a bad DNS server address?

[PotatoFi]

That's exactly what it sounds like to me. Double-check your DNS settings in MacTCP. DNS1 should be your home router, DNS2 should be a public DNS server like 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8. In fact, you probably can skip your home router and go straight for public DNS.

[WakelessFoil]

15 hours ago, PotatoFi said:

That's exactly what it sounds like to me. Double-check your DNS settings in MacTCP. DNS1 should be your home router, DNS2 should be a public DNS server like 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8. In fact, you probably can skip your home router and go straight for public DNS.

I don’t think I even entered any DNS information. When I used the dreampi with my G3 it connected fine with no DNS information. I suppose MacTCP doesn’t obtain that information from the dreampi the way the more modern TCP/IP program does.

 

Just out of curiosity, why use the router address as the first DNS?

[cheesestraws]

Lower latency, and also doesn't hand all your browsing information to Cloudflare or Google.

 

Also because of this thread I have had the network engineer's haiku in my head all day, so I'm going to share it here to try to get it out.  It is tangentially relevant.