drew@cup.portal.com (Andrew E Wade) (02/25/89)
Does anyone know any good ways to link AppleTalk (Macintosh LAN) to EtherNet (e.g., Suns, etc., running with NFS, etc.)? We use Macs for mktng, admin, finance, etc., but for sw development we use Suns and similar workstations. Major problem is email; file transfer is also useful. There are three ways I know: (1) String a serial cable from each Mac to some Sun serial port. Then, the Mac can use a terminal emulation program (we use Red Ryder) to log onto sun, then use mail, transfer files with xmodem or kermit or just ascii into vi, etc. Works fine except for: need to string cables and availability of sun ports; mail arrival is not signaled to Mac user unless he explicitly brings up Red Ryder and checks. Does anyone know of fix for this mail notification? Maybe there's a little program that could run (desk accessory?) and periodically check mail? (2) NetSerial, a box which sits on AppleTalk, shared by all Mac's (one at a time), and acts like a serial port. It can be connected to a Sun serial port, and then the Macs can log into Unix as remote terminal, just as in (1) above. Advantage: no need to string serial wires. Disadvantage: Limited resource (only one Mac can use NetSerial at a time, so Mac user might have to wait in line to read/send email, which is a real pain!); same other problem as above: no notification to Mac user of arrival of mail. (3) GatorBox and Kinetics boxes. Expensive. I haven't looked into them in detail or heard references.
bell@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Mike Bell) (02/27/89)
In article <15036@cup.portal.com> drew@cup.portal.com (Andrew E Wade) writes: >Does anyone know any good ways to link AppleTalk (Macintosh LAN) to >EtherNet (e.g., Suns, etc., running with NFS, etc.)? We use Macs >for mktng, admin, finance, etc., but for sw development we use Suns >and similar workstations. Major problem is email; file transfer is >also useful. > >There are three ways I know: (1) String a serial cable from each Mac to >some Sun serial port. Then, the Mac can use a terminal emulation program >(we use Red Ryder) to log onto sun, then use mail, transfer files with >xmodem or kermit or just ascii into vi, etc. Works fine except for: >need to string cables and availability of sun ports; mail arrival is >not signaled to Mac user unless he explicitly brings up Red Ryder and >checks. Does anyone know of fix for this mail notification? Maybe there's >a little program that could run (desk accessory?) and periodically check >mail? > >(2) NetSerial, a box which sits on AppleTalk, shared by all Mac's (one at >a time), and acts like a serial port. It can be connected to a Sun >serial port, and then the Macs can log into Unix as remote terminal, >just as in (1) above. Advantage: no need to string serial wires. >Disadvantage: Limited resource (only one Mac can use NetSerial at a time, >so Mac user might have to wait in line to read/send email, which is a real >pain!); same other problem as above: no notification to Mac user of >arrival of mail. > >(3) GatorBox and Kinetics boxes. Expensive. I haven't looked into them >in detail or heard references. A better solution is a program called Liason. Besides providing dial in accessto a network, it also acts as a router; it bridges your ethernet and appletalk networks. I fact , it will let you hook a network up to your printer port as well as your modem port. I have been using it for some time now with no problems. Mike _______________ / ___________ \ | / \ | | | UPenn | | | | Mac | | Administrator: Mike Bell (bell@eniac) | | Archives | | | \___________/ | To access the Mac archives, issue the command: | ______ | cd ~mac/new | , |______| | For a listing of all available files, read: | @ | filelist.tx \_______________/ Send any questions/suggestions about the archives to: | | \_______________/ mac@eniac ***** Above instructions are valid for PennNet use only...all others use FTP
drew@cup.portal.com (Andrew E Wade) (03/10/89)
OK. Here's what I've learned and my conclusions as follow up to my vt100 da question. Thanks again to those very nice people who shared their knowledge! What I wanted: a terminal emulation da that did at least 9600 baud, took very little memory, some kind of vt100 emulation (at least enough to run vi), and not much else. What I got: Terminal 1.5 da, which I have submitted for posting to comp.binaries.mac. It does 9600 baud+, works fine logging into Sun unix and running vi as if it were vt100, also does text upload/download, code size 32K but it seems to take a total of 60K out of the "available" pool. Couldn't ask for much more... well maybe smaller! Tricks in using it: when it starts up it complains about a missing font; just hit "OK" and ignore. Set it to 7 bits or else it doesn't do CR/LF (don't ask me...). Set BS to DEL for unix. Set terminal emulation mode to "ANSI" (whatever that means) (the other choice is VT52). [N.B. The fellow who turned me on to it says he has to set it to 8 bits to login, then set it back to 7, and he uses VT52, setting his unix termcap to VT52.] Other choices and my personal, subjective opinions: [N.B. These are all relative to my particular set of requirements, as described above. Caveat reader.] VT100 DA: I never got it to run. It complains that it needs font "VT100", which I loaded but it didn't see, and then it quits. Mail to the author bounced. Trying to remove VT100 font trashed my system file and scared me that I had lost my disk! (I guess that's what they call a bug.) Only 12K code size (sounds great, but if it doesn't work...) TERM220 DA: Runs after a fashion. It comes with six fonts. If I don't load them, then it never outputs anything (blank window). If I load all of them, it outputs gibberish. If I load only the two named "%ascii..." it complains twice at invocation, then runs, but displays funny, fat, hard-to-read characters that look as if the point size is being interpolated, and don't allow much to fit across screen width. Also, it never does a CR/LF on the output screen, always going to the right (even BS!) until wrap-around, making it almost impossible to read. This may be because vt220 emulation, which is what it claims to do, is different from vt100 ? After learning above trick for Terminal 1.5, I tried setting it to 7 bits, but that didn't fix it. Some day I'm going to try to figure out all this async magic stuff. Also, it is bigger, 63K code size (twice Terminal). MacTerm, MockTerm: Only handle up to 2400 baud, so I never tried them. 47 60 80 120 FreeTerm, MiniTerm 2.8, MiniTerm 2.9.7, Zterm.75 were respectively code sizes 47K, 60K, 80K, and 120K. I think MiniTerm couldn't handle the control characters for vt100. Same for FreeTerm. Don't recall if I tried it for ZTerm because it was too big to interest me. By the way, the reason for my funny set of requirements is to log onto unix systems for email mostly, from a Mac with only 1MB, be able to run other Mac applications (hence the small memory requirement), and be able to see in real time when email arrives to read/write email without quitting applications (hence da -- although a plain application under multi-finder would do it, if small enough, some people prefer not using multi-finder). The unix systems (mostly sun) are accessed by many systems, terminal emulators, etc., so we like to leave them all configured at vt100 for consistency.