Re: AppleTalk and Netatalk redeux

[glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu>]

David Schmenk wrote:

(snip)

> > Just wondering, how much are they going for now?  I bought some about
> > 10 years ago for a school networking project.  I think I got them for
> > a few dollars, plus shipping.  At the time, the software was available
> > on the web, if I remember right along with the passwords to make it work.

> I picked it up for $30+shipping.  Not great, but they seem to be hard to 
> get ahold of anymore.

I bought three gatorstars for two schools.  I think one included the
manuals, so was somewhat more expensive.

> > (snip)


(snip)

> The main reason I don't like the AsanteTalk is it wants to see all the 
> machines up and running before you turn it on so it can establish what 
> is where.  I like the Gatorbox's intelligence.  I want to plug in a 
> machine and have it work.

I was trying to remember that.  It does make some sense, in that
it finds out which hosts it has to serve, and then propagates those
down to ethertalk.  It did take a few tries to get that to work.
(Powering them on in different ways.)

But the way appletalk assigns addresses is that hosts remember
the address they had previously and try that on power up.  The
seed router tells the host if it has an address that is not
legal on that net.

(snip)
> > Maybe even better to have both atalkd and the GatorBox as seed
> > routers.

> When I had atalkd as a seed router, I wasn't able to see it on the 
> LocalTalk side.  Perhaps after reconfiguring the Gatorbox I will 
> understand it better.

If both are seed routers, they have to be for the same net range
and zone.  I installed one gatorstar when the room with the previous
seed router was locked.  It seems that when it started up, it then
complained (Win NT) until its configuration was changed.

-- glen