Ralph.Hyre@IUS2.CS.CMU.EDU (10/09/86)
How much hardware would I need? Seems like it should be easier than connecting a Mac to an ethernet, would it be possible to build a converter box for $100/node, or is the access method more complicated. Is it feasible to try to shove properly encapsulated AppleTalk packets over a Token Ring?
rs4u@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Richard Siegel) (11/01/86)
That's a problem that a few of us at CMU have just taken up; we are trying to connect Macintoshes to the campus internet here, for eventual hookup to the Vice fileservers. Our hope is that eventually we can make the fileservers look to the Macintosh like a large HFS hard disk. Part of that problem is hooking the Macintosh to the internet, which can basically carry anything. The problem with trying to go from Appletalk to Token Ring is that the Token Ring chipset alone costs about $200. It's highly unlikely that you could build an interface box for less than that... One option we are exploring is hooking Appletalk networks to an Kinetics AppleTalk to Ethernet gateway, and hooking the gateway onto the campus internet. I know that the CS department here has a Macintosh on the Ethernet... Maybe it is possible to shove Appletalk over a TokenRing, but I don't know for sure. --Richard Siegel (MacinVice group, Carnegie-Mellon University) (rs4u@andrew.cmu.edu)