jf@ap.co.umist.ac.uk (John Forrest) (01/15/91)
Having recently got some more macs, we were wondering on the feasibility of connecting them to our Apollo ring. I should perhaps add that I am fairly knowledgable of Apollo's but know very little about Mac details. The sort of connections I have in mind are for the apollo's to provide the printing facilities and maybe file servers. As far as hardware is concerned, we have ethernet connections on the Apollos and some of the Macs could be upgraded. However, we have recently bought some entry-level Mac Classics, and ethernet upgrades for these do not yet seem to be feasible. Is it possible to get Appletalk connections for Apollo's (DN3000/4000 running OS10) together with the appropriate software? Does Appletalk use IP - if we have an apollo acting as a bridge between two ethernets, would it have to do explicit Appletalk routing as well as IP? I apologise if this information is asked frequently, but apart from a hint that there is some software available to handle this, I have never seen the topic discussed. John Forrest Dept of Computation UMIST PS. Could you e-mail any reply because I don't read either of the groups on a regular basis.
carlton@apollo.HP.COM (Carlton B. Hommel) (01/17/91)
[Followups are directed to comp.sys.mac.comm] >Having recently got some more macs, we were wondering on the feasibility of >connecting them to our Apollo ring. I have not heard of a way to connect Macs, or AppleTalk, directly to an Apollo Token Ring network. (Ie, there is no equivalent of the DPCC layered product, that allows you to connect IBM PCs to an ATR.) >However, we have recently bought some entry-level Mac Classics, and >ethernet upgrades for these do not yet seem to be feasible. Is it >possible to get Appletalk connections for Apollo's (DN3000/4000 running >Domain/OS) together with the appropriate software? You can buy a box that will bridge between AppleTalk and Ethernet. The March 1990 issue of MacWorld had a lengthy set of articles and product reviews on this topic. Once you have your Macs on the Ethernet, you can use NCSA Telnet, MacX, and a large collection of HyperCard stacks to make ftp, X Window stuff, news reading, and mail programs work. Carl Hommel carlton@apollo.hp.com [Below is my standard file on Mac <-> Apollo.] How to connect a Mac to an Apollo The fastest way to connect a Mac to an Apollo is to buy an Ethernet Card, for either a Mac II or SE/30, and connect into the network using NCSA Telnet or some other TCP/IP software. The research I did showed that the Racal-Interlan cards delivered the most for the best price. For people willing live with a transfer rate of about 1.5K cps, do the following: Hardware 1. Get (or make) a null modem Mac-to-RS232 cable. 2. Connect the modem port in the back of the Mac (the one with the phone symbol) with the tty01 port of your DNXXXX. 3. Edit the file /sys/node_data/etc/ttys , and change the line tty01 none dumb off secure to tty01 "/etc/getty 19200-baud" vt100 on secure 4. (As root), send a HUP signal to the init process, by # kill -1 1 5. Check and make sure the process is running: # ps ax | grep tty01 7392 ? S 0:00 - 19200-baud tty01 Software: 1. Find a Mac terminal emulator that supports the zterm protocol. ZTerm is $35 shareware, available from sumex.stanford.edu as file /info-mac/comm/zterm-085.hqx . Various commercially available programs support zmodem, as well. Send in your shareware fee if you use zterm regularly. 2. Get the Unix zmodem package, and compile it. It is available from sumex.stanford.edu as /info-mac/unix/zmodem-part[1234]1.shar. This will give you the rz and sz programs. Mac Usage: Double click on the ZTerm icon. Set the baud rate to 19.2K. The other default settings are harmless. You should now see a login prompt, although it may be garbled because of a problem with getty and 8 bit output. Just type in your login normally, and things will get back to normal. Modem usage: If you are dialing in over a phone line, then use a modem Mac-to-RS232 cable. Set your baud rate to whatever your telecommunications equipment expects. File Transfers: To send files from Mac to Apollo (upload): Type "rz". It will type back rz ready. To begin transfer, type "sz file ..." to your modem program and start sending out magic zmodem characters. Use the pulldown menu to start a zmodem upload. To send files from Apollo to Mac (download): Type "sz". It will respond Sending in Batch Mode and wait. The Zterm program will catch the magic zmodem characters, and put the file onto your Mac disk. There may be occasional problems with the interaction between sz and your network. If you are getting a throughput of 3%, rather than 75-90%, try copying the sz program, and the files you want to download, onto the /tmp directory of the node you are logged into, and executing the binary from there. Another incredibly useful Unix program is mcvert. Mcvert converts binhexed *.hqx files into MacBinary *.bin files. ZTerm will take the MacBinary file and directly put it on your Mac - you don't need to run binhex on your mac! mcvert is available from sumex.stanford.edu as file /info-mac/unix/mcvert-15.shar . Carl Hommel carlton@apollo.hp.com