Re: Advice on networking a IIGS?

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

<chris.hafner@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I have a ROM01 IIGS with 512KB of RAM that I've been enjoying as a general
> game machine, thanks to the magic of ADT and the advice of this group a
> year ago. Now I think I'm ready to take it to the next level, and will
> probably start with one of Vince Briel's 4MB cards to up the RAM and get
> on the list for the next run of the CFFA3000.
> 
> The tricky part (for me, at least) is that I'm interested in networking my
> IIGS to my Mac LCIII+ for file-sharing purposes and have them share an
> Imagewriter II. The LCIII+ has an Ethernet adapter, and I'm hoping to get
> it online to serve as an alternative to ADT to getting software over to
> the IIGS.
> 
> I'm an ignoramus when it comes to networking, and as I've looked into it
> I've become confused with the differences (if they exist) between
> AppleTalk, AppleShare, PhoneNet, and LocalTalk.

Some background which may be helpful:

"AppleTalk" is the name for the protocol stack, and it covers several
different physical network interfaces. The point of confusion is that
when AppleTalk was introduced it only had one physical interface, based
on serial ports with multi-drop connections via an adapter, and the name
was originally used interchangeably for the protocol stack and physical
interface.

When other physical interfaces were introduced, "AppleTalk" became just
the protocol name, and the physical interface based on serial ports was
named "LocalTalk". The other physical interfaces dating back to this
time were called "EtherTalk" (AppleTalk over Ethernet) and "TokenTalk"
(AppleTalk over Token Bus). AppleTalk routers allowed connection between
different physical network interfaces.

AppleTalk (the protocol stack) is similar in concept to TCP/IP (but much
simpler), and on an Ethernet network it is possible to operate AppleTalk
and TCP/IP simultaneously, because they use different identification
values in the Ethernet packets.

Apple's LocalTalk cabling system uses an interface box for each device
on the network. It plugs into a Mini-Din-8 port on the computer, and has
two Mini-Din-3 connectors on the network side. The devices in the
network are connected in a daisy-chain, with one empty socket in the
interface boxes at each end of the network. The box has an automatic
termination mechanism if it detects nothing is plugged into one of the
sockets.

PhoneNet is a third party alternative to Apple's LocalTalk cabling
system, developed because it was much cheaper than the Apple product.
The network side uses RJ-11 connectors and the network cables are cheap
telephone cable. Manual termination is normally required at the ends of
the network, by plugging terminating resistors into the vacant sockets.
(The terminating resistors were normally supplied with the interface
boxes.)

I'm not aware of being able to mix LocalTalk and PhoneNet cabling
systems, but I expect it would be possible if someone had built a cable
with the right connectors, assuming the electrical characteristics of
the two are otherwise very close.

It is also worth noting that if you only need to network two devices, a
simple Mini-Din-8 serial cable often works (but some devices don't like
this - I'm aware of problems with HP laser printers, for example). I use
this method to connect my Apple IIgs to my PowerMac 8600 for the
occasions I want to transfer files over a network rather than shuffling
floppies.

The Apple IIgs (and Apple IIe with workstation card) support AppleTalk
over the LocalTalk physical interface, so will work with a LocalTalk or
PhoneNet cabling system.

For more than two devices you need a set of either LocalTalk adapters
and cables, or a set of PhoneNet adapters with two terminators, and off
the shelf telephone cables.


"AppleShare" is Apple's file server software, also used to refer to the
client software. AppleShare uses the Apple Filing Protocol (AFP), which
was originally one of the top-level protocols within the AppleTalk
protocol stack ("AppleTalk Filing Protocol").