hammen@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Robert Hammen) (11/13/90)
I've been given the thankless task of converting our current LocalTalk network over to EtherTalk. I'm currently shopping around for opinions on NuBus Ethernet boards, as well as an EtherTalk to LocalTalk router. The June 1990 MacUser seems to have a good series of articles on the subject; however, I'd like to hear from real-world users of these products. Specifically, I'm interested in the Cayman GatorCard EtherTalk boards, as well as the GatorBox router. Is the GatorBox the way to go? I had the misfortune of dealing with the original Kinetics Fastpath, which may have soured me on the products (though I realize the FastPath 4 is a new unit). We'll only be using the router to connect to 4 printers on LocalTalk; the EtherTalk end of the network is Mac IIs only (no Unix or DEC connectivity needed here, so many of the optional features of the GatorBox and FastPath are unneccessary). I'd appreciate receiving responses via e-mail. If there is sufficient interest, I'll post a summary. ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// / Robert Hammen | Software Applications Engineer | Screaming Color, Inc. / / 125 N. Prospect Ave. | Itasca, IL 60143 | (708) 250-9500 / / hammen@ddsw1.mcs.com | 70701.2104@compuserve.com | GEnie: R.Hammen / //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
drew@cup.portal.com (Andrew E Wade) (11/16/90)
Gatorbox is great! Although our macs are on appletalk (phonenet) ... but should be same for ethernet. It does real-time translation of apple's filing protocol to/from NFS (sun's standard network file system). Result: mac users see unix files as icons, can double-click, drag 'em around, etc. Can do automated unattended backup to unix disks with retrospect. Can share printers (e.g., our framemakers users on unix printer to laserwriter on appletalk). Can have transparent email to unix world (we use gatormail-q bridge and quickmail for nice mac window interface). Nice stuff! -Drew Wade drew@objy.com