Re: AppleTalk

[David Wilson <david@uow.edu.au>]

"Michael Pender" <mpender@hotmail.com> writes:

>I've heard from several people that an AppleTalk connection from a IIgs to a
>Mac or a PC (by way of an Appletalk to ethernet connector) will allow a
>person to use the second computer as a fileserver.  I'd like to be able to
>boot my IIgs from something faster than 3.5" floppy, but I'm not rushing to
>spend the money for a SCSI card and external hard drive until I better
>understand the AppleTalk option.

>I'm looking for a convenient and relatively transparent way to use Appletalk
>to share the resources (such as excessively large disk space) of my existing
>machines, and I have a few questions for people who have gotten it to work:

>Can I boot the IIgs from Appletalk?  If so, what are the limitations?

Yes, from a Mac running AppleShare v2 or v3 (or perhaps from a Linux server
with appropriate hardware and software).

>Does AppleTalk work under Prodos 8, or only under the Finder?  In other
>words, under Prodos 8 can I browse the hard drive a my Mac or PC looking for
>files?

Yes, no. Yes.

>Is there a convenient way to store DSK files on the second computer (Mac or
>PC) and use these as though they were local floppies?

Not that I know of.

>Can a person transfer a file via AppleTalk to the slot 5 ramdisk and use
>that like a floppy?

Yes.

>How does the speed of AppleTalk compare to a 3.5" floppy, an IDE slot drive,
>or an external SCSI drive?

AppleTalk is 230kb/s. SCSI on an Apple //e is max 500kB/s = 4000kb/s. With
a high speed SCSI card I think a //gs can double the throughput of a //e.
-- 
David Wilson  School of IT & CS, Uni of Wollongong, Australia