pgil@sphinx.uchicago.edu (paul gilna) (01/21/88)
hello I would be interested to hear of anyone's experience of using SUN TOPS. We are trying to configure a LAN using a SUN 3/60 as a server to a mix of PC's and Macs. Although we plan to wire with both thin wire ethernet and PhoneNet (using a Kinetics FastPath to bridge the two nets), we are interested in having a universal protocol running over ethernet that would integrate PC's and ethernet capable Macs. so; 1. Is anyone using TOPS and EtherTalk 2. How close is TOPS to using a PC 3Com board or similar. 3. What are the physical cable limitations for Ethertalk/thin wire. 4. Is there a way to spool to a printer off the SUN from either apple- or Ethertalk. 5. Is there an alternative to TOPS other than micro versions of TCP/IP or NFS, that can (or will in the future) integrate SUN UNIX, PC and Mac in a "seamless" (lord do I hate that word) fashion. Much Thanks, paul gilna. -- UUCP: ...!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!pgil, BITNET: pgil@sphinx.UChicago.edu Analogue: (312) 702-6971 VOICE: Hullo, um, is Paul there? Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) (01/22/88)
> > hello > I would be interested to hear of anyone's experience > of using SUN TOPS. We are trying to configure a LAN > using a SUN 3/60 as a server to a mix of PC's and > Macs. Although we plan to wire with both thin wire > ethernet and PhoneNet (using a Kinetics FastPath to > bridge the two nets), we are interested in having a > universal protocol running over ethernet that would > integrate PC's and ethernet capable Macs. so; > > 1. Is anyone using TOPS and EtherTalk > 2. How close is TOPS to using a PC 3Com board or similar. > 3. What are the physical cable limitations for > Ethertalk/thin wire. > 4. Is there a way to spool to a printer off the SUN > from either apple- or Ethertalk. > 5. Is there an alternative to TOPS other than micro > versions of TCP/IP or NFS, that can (or will in the > future) integrate SUN UNIX, PC and Mac in a "seamless" > (lord do I hate that word) fashion. > > Much Thanks, paul gilna. Our system here is: Sun 3/280 file server many Sun 3/50s one Sun 3/60 a dozen PCs a dozen or so Macs an Apple LaserWriter Plus a Kinetics FastPath box bridging AppleTalk net to Ethernet The LaserWriter Plus and Macs are on Appletalk network using TOPS to access the Sun 3/280 file server. The PCs are on Ethernet, using Sun's PC-NFS to talk to the Sun 3/280, which also provides the networked printer support. We have everything working pretty well now, though our print spooler will occasionally fail with an very non-descriptive error message, and require human intervention. I would strongly encourage anyone considering a combination like this to reconsider why they are taking such an approach. Our particular Kinetics FastPath occasionally fails in a manner that requires us to reinitialize its software -- yet passes diagnostics. When this happens, the AppleTalk part stops talking to Ethernet. There are quirks of trying to use PC software to talk to the LaserWriter over this torturous path, and it appears that the combination of TOPS and PC-NFS create problems that preclude using the solutions you would use for TOPS or PC-NFS alone. The Appletalk part of our setup works fine -- the PC-NFS part works sort of OK (though you don't want to use the DOS APPEND command if you are using PC-NFS), but the combination of all these systems has taken up a lot of time to get working. Even now, most Mac users work on hard disks instead of trusting the network to stay up long enough to complete editing a document. (That includes me -- and I'm responsible for maintaining it). Clayton E. Cramer