Re: Apple II2GS appletalk to iMac Question ?

[Charles Stephens <devnull@dobbs.eng.sun.com>]

>>>>> "JC" == John R Cambron <fairland@mail.*chesapeake*.net> writes:

 JC> I have Question about an Apple IIGS. As I have little knowledge
 JC> about Apples and Macs. My boss has a Apple IIGS that he has used
 JC> for many years. It has two external disk drives 5.5 and 3.25 He
 JC> intends to buy an iMac, and he would like to network the two
 JC> machines so he can access the disk drives connected to the IIGS
 JC> from the iMac. He tells me that there are references to appletalk
 JC> in the documentation, but there are no ports on the back to
 JC> connect eathernet cables to. What additional hardware does he
 JC> need to network these machines using Appletalk, like some kind of
 JC> eathernet 10base2 card and and category 5 crossover cable. What
 JC> should he be looking for ? We all know that the iMac has this
 JC> hardware already built in.

The Apple IIgs's serial ports can act as LocalTalk interfaces.
LocalTalk is a 240Kbps network medium for AppleTalk (you can learn the
nitty grity by getting "Inside AppleTalk, Second Ed.").

Traditionally most Macintoshes have serial ports which could also do
LocalTalk (AppleTalk showed up on Macs before the Apple IIgs), but the
iMac does not.  What you need is a Ethernet to LocalTalk bridge.  I
dunno who still makes them, but what I did was buy an old Shiva (now
Farallon) FastPath 4.  Works like a charm.  I can mount my old
Performa 6115CD's harddrive right on my IIgs's desktop.

There was a prototype Ethernet card for the Apple II, but it was never
produced.

Good luck.

cfs
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