unocc07@zeus.unl.edu (Dave Caplinger, Microcomputer Specialist) (12/13/89)
Hello all... I hope that someone might be able to help me. I'm now in charge
of a relatively small sized community of Macs, and the AppleTalk networks that
connect them. Our situation is:
"DSC User Room":
13 Mac SE's (1Meg), 5 ImageWriter II's, 1 LaserWriter IIntx and 1
SE/30 AppleShare/PrintShare server w/ 4Meg, connected via LocalTalk
cabling.
"CBA User Room":
4 SE's, 2 ImageWriter II's, 1 LaserWriter IInt, 1 SE/30 AppleShare /
PrintShare server w/ 2 Meg RAM (soon to be upgraded to 4), connected via
LocalTalk cabling.
"EAB Building":
About 5 Miscellaneous Macs, connected via LocalTalk cabling. Also, one
Kinetics FastPath 4, to gateway it into the campus ethernet.
Here's where the fun begins. We have 2 more FastPaths (one for each user
room) not yet installed, and I'm trying to get a Kinetics Etherport SE to
work in my SE so I can reach all three FastPaths around campus to configure
them, etc.
I'm using NCSA Telnet v2.3 on my Mac to access other hosts on the campus
ethernet, and this works "fine" when I tell Telnet that my hardware is
AppleTalk, and fill in the AppleTalk zone name in the config.tel file. NCSA
then goes through the FastPath to get onto the campus ethernet and everything
is good.
I've had the Etherport SE installed in my Mac, so I plugged the thinwire
from our Novell (gag, puke) network into it, changed the hardware to "EtherSE"
and commented out the appletalk zone field in the config.tel, as well as
specifying the address of my local nameserver and gateway. Now, when I try
to connect to a host, I /always/ get "local host or gateway not responding".
This happens no matter what network I specify (EtherTalk or "Built-in") in
the chooser.
Now, before you tell me that I can't just plug the thinwire from the Novell
into the Mac and expect it to work, let me say that the thinwire is also
bridged to the campus ethernet through a DEMPR I beleive (I don't run that
part of the shop..), and this same thinwire connection was where the
FastPath was tested (and proved to work for accessing the campus Ethernet)
at. :-)
(** mild flamage ahead **)
I have got to admit at this point that NCSA Telnet for the PC is very very
good (I'm using it now, so yes I know who my gateway and nameserver are :-),
but their port to the Mac is just that: a PC program running on the Mac. The
error messages are much less than helpful, the whole thing with the
"Connections" menu seems counter to the standard Macintosh Interface, and the
thing never puts up a watch cursor when it's "busy" besides. :-)
(** flame (to NCSA at least) off. **)
So... does anyone have any suggestions for getting NCSA Telnet working with
a Kinetics Etherport SE? I've been playing with various options, etc, for
over a week now, and I'm getting pretty fed up with it. Maybe I'm doing
everything fine and the stupid Etherport is just plain bad? I don't know...
But I just wanted to check to see if anyone else has had these types of
problems, and if so, how were they resolved?
In fact, I even tried to get MacTCP (and the MacTCP version of NCSA Telnet,
which again, works fine with LocalTalk cabling and the FastPath) to work
with the ethercard, but to no avail. (And speaking of flames, I can
hardly beleive that Apple put their name on MacTCP! The setup is VERY
un-Mac-like. Just to give my mac an IP number I had to dig out my HP-28S,
convert numbers to binary, append them, and then convert back to decimal so I
could type them into the "3 Mystical Class-B Subnet Text Fields". Argh!)
Thanks very much to anyone that might be able (and willing) to offer some
advice!
(As an aside, the FastPath documentation is pretty abysmal too.. it seems
that everything dealing with AppleTalk that I want to get running must
first be checked by my AppleTalk Network Manager. But that's me!! :-)
-/ Dave Caplinger /---------------------------------------------------------
Microcomputer Specialist, Campus Computing, Univ. of Nebraska at Omaha
mspecial@zeus.unl.edu ...!uunet!unocss!dent MSPECIAL@UNOMA1umbaugh@EVAX.ARL.UTEXAS.EDU (David Umbaugh) (12/13/89)
Dave Caplinger asks how to get NCSA Telnet to work through the Kinetics EtherPort SE -- Dave, you have probably done this, but here are two things you did not specifically mention in your posting: The EtherPort card has a micro-slide switch on the back which must be moved toward the thin ethernet connector if you are not using the Ethernet Tranciever connection. Second item: The config.tel file has a hardware parameter which you must change from AppleTalk to EtherSE. We have a number of SEs doing exactly what you want. The FastPath box is not a necessary part of the equation just to use Telnet, but you do need a bridge to LocalTalk to use networked printers without having to switch back and forth from BuiltIn to EtherTalk networks. You may be moderately justified in your complaint re. NCSA's MacUser Interface, but I think you will find that the PC Telnet is a port of the Macintosh original rather than the other way around. Dave Umbaugh, CSE Dept. University of Texas at Arlington <umbaugh@evax.arl.utexas.edu>