kenw@skyler.arc.ab.ca (Ken Wallewein) (05/31/91)
This started out as an AppleTalk problem, but it's not clear it is now; it someone has a suggestion about an alternative newsgroup, I'm all ears. I've been having "interesting times" trying to get AppleTalk/PC to work with an 8 MHz/33MHz IPC 386. After determining that the board itself was bad, installing a good one, I found that I had to run in it interrrupt mode, or the PC would immediately wedge if run at 33 MHz. Even in interrupt mode, it must be switched back to 8 MHz while using AppleTalk/PC, or the same thing happens. This is the Apple version of AppleTalk/PC, not Farallon's; I think the software is version 2.1. In any case, Farallon says I'm outa luck past 25 MHz, and that my only option is to get an Ethernet board instead. Not being very conversant with the state of the art in this area, I'm looking for advice and words of experience. Here's the environment. The user wants to do printing, terminal emulation, and file service. Wiring to his office includes LocalTalk, EtherNet, and RS232. All of our printers are on LocalTalk, with FastPath gateways to an EtherNet backbone running EtherTalk (Phase 1), IPTalk, and the usual stuff. We have VMS (Pacer, no PathWorks) and SunOS (CAP 5.x) AppleShare servers. The VMS systems also run CMU/Tek TCP/IP. The IPC 386 has 4 MB of memory, and switches between 8 MHz and 33 MHz "on the fly" quite cleanly. The bus apparently always runs at 8 MHz. As I see it, I have two reasonable ways to go with this: 1: EtherTalk. Must be Phase II, which means we'll finally have to configure at least one of our FastPaths as a Phase 1/Phase 2 gateway. No idea about compatibility with oddball PCs, Win3, memory requirements, etc. 2: TCP/IP (probably PC/NFS): Would probably work fairly well in the existing environment, assuming it supports LPR. Of course, it would have to route through a host to do printing. I don't know what limitations that entails. So, what's the best way to go here? Which solution would be likely to work best, be easiest to configure, and give fewest problems with compatibility. What's current wisdom on this? -- /kenw Ken Wallewein A L B E R T A kenw@noah.arc.ab.ca <-- replies (if mailed) here, please R E S E A R C H (403)297-2660 C O U N C I L
shoemake@Apple.COM (Mike Shoemaker) (06/01/91)
kenw@skyler.arc.ab.ca (Ken Wallewein) writes: > I've been having "interesting times" trying to get AppleTalk/PC to work >with an 8 MHz/33MHz IPC 386. > After determining that the board itself was bad, installing a good one, I >found that I had to run in it interrrupt mode, or the PC would immediately >wedge if run at 33 MHz. Even in interrupt mode, it must be switched back >to 8 MHz while using AppleTalk/PC, or the same thing happens. > This is the Apple version of AppleTalk/PC, not Farallon's; I think the >software is version 2.1. In any case, Farallon says I'm outa luck past 25 >MHz, and that my only option is to get an Ethernet board instead. If it's Apple's software, the last version we released before turning the product over to Farallon was 2.0.1 It is not true that the only option is Ethernet. AppleShare PC 2.0.x supports the DayStar Digital LocalTalk cards -- both for the PC-AT bus and Microchannel. But, yes our (Apple's) LocalTalk card does have extreme problems in machines faster than 25 MHz due to a rather unusual hardware design. Mike Shoemaker Apple Computer, Inc.