[comp.sys.mac] VAX <--> Mac

schmidt@lsrhs.UUCP (chris schmidt) (01/07/87)

I am managing a VAX 11/780 and will be acquiring 10+ Mac plusses inside the
first half of this year.  I need to find a way to hook the VAX to AppleTalk
(or another network) so that the Macs can share it's disk system and general
beefiness.  Obviously, I don't want to have to resort to terminal emulation
since that will decapitate the macs.  I've heard rumors that Apple is
working on a product designed to do just this, but I don't know if such a
thing will work with Ultrix (or SysV) which we currently run.  I want no
part of VMS, but something tells me that Apple will try to work with that
system first.  Any suggestions?

Chris Schmidt/Lincoln-Sudbury High School/390 Lincoln Rd/Sudbury/Ma/01776

(617) 926-3242 ----->   mit-caf!lsrhs!schmidt@eddie.mit.edu

gold@well.UUCP (Samuel M. Goldberger) (01/09/87)

I just saw a product demonstrated at MacWorld called
MacNix which does just what you want. First rate.

meldal@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU (Sigurd Meldal) (01/09/87)

In article <523@lsrhs.UUCP> schmidt@lsrhs.UUCP (chris schmidt) writes:
>I am managing a VAX 11/780 and will be acquiring 10+ Mac plusses inside the
>first half of this year.  I need to find a way to hook the VAX to AppleTalk
>(or another network) so that the Macs can share it's disk system and general
>beefiness.  

You may want to check out Kinetics' FastPath and EtherSC boxes. One is a
2500$ (list) gateway between AppleTalk and EtherNet (up to 32(?) Macs), the
other is a Mac->EtherNet 1250$ (list) connector (incl. transceiver). They have
software for terminal emulation and for making the UNIX host appear as a
Mac desktop (!), with every host a disk-like entity (i.e. you copy files
from host to host by click-and-drag, etc).

CENTRAM is using these boxes with their TOPS network, you may want to check
into that as well.

The address: Kinetics inc.
	     2500 Camino Diablo, Suite 110
	     Walnut Creek, CA 94596

	     ph: (415) 947 0998

Sigurd Meldal

(who got this from talking to a person at the MacWorld Expo)

Hard mail: ERL 456		| Arpa: meldal@su-shasta.arpa
           Computer Systems Lab.|	      @shasta.stanford.edu
	   Stanford University	|	      @anna.stanford.edu
	   Stanford CA 94305	| Uucp: ...decwrl!glacier!shasta!meldal
	   USA			|

phone: +1 415 723 6027

korn@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (01/09/87)

In article <523@lsrhs.UUCP> schmidt@lsrhs.UUCP (chris schmidt) writes:
>I am managing a VAX 11/780 and will be acquiring 10+ Mac plusses inside the
>first half of this year.  I need to find a way to hook the VAX to AppleTalk
>(or another network) so that the Macs can share it's disk system and general
>beefiness.  Obviously, I don't want to have to resort to terminal emulation
>since that will decapitate the macs.  I've heard rumors that Apple is
>working on a product designed to do just this, but I don't know if such a
>thing will work with Ultrix (or SysV) which we currently run.  I want no
>part of VMS, but something tells me that Apple will try to work with that
>system first.  Any suggestions?

I would go with Tops by Centram.  I spent a fair portion of today at
the MacWorld Expo playing with their stuff, and I came away quite 
impressed.  The UNIX end was talking with a uVaxII running 4.3BSD Unix
(the Mt. Xinu folks were there making sure that someone there could
bring up and down the Unix end).  I ran Excel and a couple of other
programs from the uVax hard drive--ran about the same speed as the 400K
floppys.  The interface to the uVax end is a Knetics box.  I didn't
get too many details of the hardware, sorry.

Tops will allow you to transfer files to & from macs & Unix boxes (and PCs--
why this latter I couldn't tell you, but...), and to mount Unix file
systems as MFS or HFS drives on the mac (I tested both).  I didn't get
a chance to see if I could make a mac drive behave as a Unix file system,
but I believe that you can do that too.  Currently they are not set up
to handle spooling to the LW well.  In fact, nobody there was very
clear on spooling, save that "yah, it's a neat thing, and it'd be useful,
and hey look, the PC end spools".

Still, the product seemed very very robust (our office currently has
Tops installed over a mac, a PC, and a LW).

Peter
-----						  
Peter "Arrgh" Korn		         Hacker?  Me?  A hacker?  No, actually
korn@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU			 I'm a mac-er.  All's we do is
{decvax,dual,hplabs,sdcsvax,ulysses}!ucbvax!korn            make library calls.

tim@j.cc.purdue.edu.UUCP (01/09/87)

Several people here at Purdue are working on setting up a link between
Appletalk networks and the Ethernet that runs between Vaxes.  They are
using a box called the Kinetics FastPath.  This allows terminal sessions
via telnet and file transfer via tftp (soon ftp).  Some time in the
future they plan on using the Vax as a file server for the Macs.
-- 
Timothy Lange
Purdue University Computing Center
West Lafayette, IN
317-494-1787 extension 260
tim@j.cc.purdue.edu

espen@well.UUCP (Peter Espen) (01/10/87)

In article <2324@well.UUCP>, gold@well.UUCP (Samuel M. Goldberger) writes:
> 
> I just saw a product demonstrated at MacWorld called
> MacNix which does just what you want. First rate.


	I believe that MacNix is meant to run with a UNIX machine. So
if the VAX you have is running UNIX then your all set. I think!