[comp.sys.mac] External clocking of AppleTalk

fitz@cive.ri.cmu.edu (Kerien Fitzpatrick) (09/18/87)

Has anyone looked into externally clocking the AppleTalk port?  I am in
charge of a large Mac network with mostly Plusses and a few SEs.  The
thought of spending $1000 per Plus and $600 per SE to get them on ethernet
is a little overboard.  I don't feel we need a transfer rate of 10Mb/s, but
that 230Kb/s is snail speed.  The original AppleTalk speed is fine when the
only equipment on your network is a LaserWriter, but once you start putting
file and mail servers the slow speed becomes painful.  Is Apple doing
anything about this or are they just looking at connecting their new models
to a higher speed network?

Any information is appreciated.

Kerien Fitzpatrick
Field Robotics Center
Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
fitz@cive.ri.cmu.edu
(412)268-6564

tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney) (09/22/87)

In article <1045@cive.ri.cmu.edu> fitz@cive.ri.cmu.edu (Kerien Fitzpatrick)
writes:
>Has anyone looked into externally clocking the AppleTalk port?  [...]
>Is Apple doing
>anything about this or are they just looking at connecting their new models
>to a higher speed network?

It can be done, but it isn't easy.  We at TOPS have had some experiments
along these lines going on for a while; whether they will ever become a
product is unknown at this point.  Our PC Appletalk boards have always had
the ability to run at three or four times speed between themselves and share
the network with slower Appletalk speeds, so we think it would be nice to
have a low-cost attachment that would let Macs do the same.

Unfortunately, Ethernet costs have not been dropping all that fast, and the
SCSI Ethernet board for Kinetics was still mucho expensive last time I
looked.  It would be better just to migrate to Ethernet, as you suggest, but
that won't happen on a large scale until 1989 or 1990.
-- 
Tim Maroney, {ihnp4,sun,well,ptsfa,lll-crg}!hoptoad!tim (uucp)
hoptoad!tim@lll-crg (arpa)

josh@wjh12.HARVARD.EDU (Joshua Ben Hurwitz) (09/27/87)

   Help!! My Mac II hard disk has crashed, and I've discovered that
both the system utilities (i.e. "Disk First Aid" and "Apple HD SC
Setup") and existing recovery software (e.g. MacTools and Mac Zap) will not
recover my files.  The utilities are not sophisticated enough and the
recovery software is not compatible.  I would like public domain
software accessible from a bulletin board, if possible.  Thanks!