joel@gould9.UUCP.UUCP (05/17/86)
Does anyone know a way for a Sun (3/160c) and a Mac to share
an Apple LaserWriter?
I assume one way would be to put the Sun on AppleTalk. Any information
on vendors, prices, availability (vaporware vs. beta release vs.
actual product), etc. of Sun-to-AppleTalk adapters would be appreciated.
(Since we might get a Masscomp (68020-series) instead, I'd be curious to
know if the above would work with it, as well.)
The alternative seems to be ship the PostScript from the Mac (using Cmd-F)
to the Sun and then let the Sun worry about transfering it.
----
Joel West (619) 457-9681
CACI, Inc. Federal, 3344 N. Torrey Pines Ct., La Jolla, CA 92037
{cbosgd, ihnp4, pyramid, sdcsvax, ucla-cs} !gould9!joel
joel%gould9.uucp@NOSC.ARPARalph.Hyre@C.CS.CMU.EDU ("Ralph W. Hyre, Jr.") (05/20/86)
Sun CPU board has two 8530 SCC's on it, but I don't know if they can be configured for AppleTalk or not. The real problem is software. Apple could do worse than license AppleTalk sources to Sun, especially if they can get an AppleTalk NFS for the Mac in exchange. Then someone could port it to the PC and the Apple //x and solve a lot of file exchange problems. [Imagine using a PC with AppleTalk and Ethernet cards as a file-service 'gateway' which would allow a Mac or Apple ][ to share files with the PC and Unix Boxes] - Ralph -------
Walter.Smith@WB1.CS.CMU.EDU (05/22/86)
> Apple could do worse than license AppleTalk sources to Sun, especially if > they can get an AppleTalk NFS for the Mac in exchange. In case anyone's interested: Apple will license the Appletalk source code to just about anyone for $5000 (call Software Licensing at 408-996-1010 for more information). I imagine this is too expensive a solution for Mr. West's problem, but Sun could easily afford it. But then it seems like Sun should be capable of implementing their own, given Inside Appletalk. Isn't the Apple Filing Protocol (or whatever it's called) almost done now? Perhaps it would be better to put that on the Sun, if possible, since I imagine Apple is already working on //x and PC support for it. - Walt
Applebus.Directory@C.CS.CMU.EDU (AppleTalk Interest Group Moderator) (05/22/86)
Can the Zilog 8530 SCC's on the Sun CPU boards support RS-422 (balanced line-level) signalling? It might be useful to run AppleTalk on a Sun. It will make a nice AppleTalk/Ethernet gateway as well as a bridge between NFS, EFS, and Apple's Filing Protocol. - Ralph -------
tim@normac.UUCP.UUCP (05/29/86)
Re: the Sun CPU's 8530 SCC chips The presence of a Zilog 8530 chip is not sufficient to implement AppleTalk. The following requirements must also be met: 1) It must be possible to clock the bitstream at 230,400 bits per second which usually means an external crystal oscillator at either this frequency or some multiple (but not faster than 4 MHz). 2) AppleTalk is implemented over RS422 which requires balanced line drivers and balanced receivers. Since this isn't required for SCC chips doing RS232, SCC-using circuits may not have these extra wires in place. 3) To meet the AppleTalk spec, a filter/T-configuration of resistors and caps is required between the line drivers and the AppleTalk connector kit transformer. 4) Since the 8530 has limited buffering and AppleTalk is a synchronous protocol, somebody has to monitor those buffers to keep the 8530 shifting complete packets of bits in and out without overrun or underrun. It works out to be about 35 usec per byte. This normally requires a dedicated processor because bus latency and task switching often eat up more time than this. "Hey, I'm a software guy", so Stephen Lewis helped me succinctly state the above. My rumor source said that Sun looked at this, figured out what was needed and decided not to do it at this time. Re: NFS for the Mac It's true. We have done a good paper design and have had some preliminary talks with Sun and Apple about doing an NFS implementation for the Macintosh. There are some hard problems surrounding file/directory naming which still need to be worked out. Our goal would be to run without modifications to either the Mac's HFS/AFP environment or any vanilla NFS server. This would enable the Mac to be an NFS client only and we don't plan on allowing NFS clients to be served by AFP servers using this design. All the work would be done in the Kinetics gateway; the gateway program will essentially be an AFP server and NFS client and do session bookkeeping, all command driven from the AFP client. The gateway would need the full 112k RAM expansion, and possibly larger PROMs in the sockets. We are estimating that it is a 5-6 man-month project if WE do it, but more exploratory work needs to be done. We haven't started just yet. We hope to get to it "real soon now" and this is not an officially announced product for us. I don't think AFP has been announced by Apple either. Re: MacWorkstation The MIS group at Apple has converted MacWorkstation to use AppleTalk through our gateway to Ethernet hosted on a Vax running VMS.... tim