king@entropy.ms.washington.edu (Jim King) (11/07/87)
I have two questions about Macs and ethernet. I would really appreciate information or pointers to information that could help me understand what options are available and what their merits are. 1) In our department we have an office Appletalk network with Macs and a Laserwriter and then a disjoint StarLan network of Unix PCs and IBM PCs running from a 3B2 (Unix Sys V with Berkeley sockets); the 3B2 is in turn connected by ethernet to the campus net on which there are VAXs etc. We plan to connect the Appletalk net to the 3B2 using a Kinetics box. Question: Once we have the K-box, what is the best way or ways to use this new connection for print spooling, communication, file transfer, etc.? Would it be a good idea to try to get the Columbia CAP on the 3B2 so the 3B2 would be an Appleshare server? (Would this permit everyone on both nets to share printers, files and messages, or would it only benefit the Appletalk network?) With this or some other method, could we hang the LW from the 3B2 instead of the Appletalk net, or is this a bad idea? Is there any other good way to getting the kind of transparent communication between the Macs on the Appletalk and machines on the StarLan that the StarLan machines have among themselves? 2) We are considering adding some Mac IIs to our computer lab. Currently in the lab are IBM RTs running Unix and Network File System; the machines are on the campus ethernet. If we put ethertalk cards in the Mac IIs (are the Apple ones the only kind or are there others?), how can we best connect the Macs to the rest of the machines on the ethernet? Is there NFS for the Macs, and if there is does it require A/UX or will it work with the Mac OS? Is there software that would let the Macs serve as an intelligent and friendly front end to the RTs? Should the Macs be communicating using Appletalk and speaking some other protocol to the RTs or should (can) all the machines communicate in a more uniform way? 3) What is NCSA Telnet and is it relevant to either 1) or 2)? I apologize if some of these questions do not make sense, but if I knew better how to pose the questions, I would probably already know the answers. Thanks for any help or info. Please send me mail and I will summarize for the net if there is interest. Jim King uucpnet address: uw-beaver!uw-entropy!king Internet (arpanet) address: king@entropy.ms.washington.edu or for some mailers: king%entropy.ms@beaver.cs.washington.edu Bitnet address: king%entropy.ms.washington.edu@beaver.cs.washington.edu James King Dept of Math Univ of Washington Seattle, Whess}