ostroff@Oswego.EDU (Boyd Ostroff) (06/15/90)
In article <1438@philtis.cft.philips.nl> grant@cft.philips.nl (Joe Grant) writes: >Hi Net, > > I need some information on Tops. I have a Mac II with an ethernet We have two mac plusses and a mac II running TOPS over AppleTalk (LocalTalk) in our office. > > 1. There are two other Macs that I know of in the building, so > maybe they'll also be able to use the Tops solution. Neither has an > ethernet card, will this be a problem? As long as you're happy with the 230KBaud speed of AppleTalk, this should not be a problem. > > 2. If I can backup over Tops, what software would be required to run > the backup or is it bundled with Tops - wishful thinking? I realise Tops just lets you mount remote volumes. They behave exactly like they were a hard disk connected directly to your local mac. You should be able to use any program just like the TOPS volume was local (with the exception that you can't copy the System file over TOPS for some reason). > Any general info. people have on Tops would also be of great help. We're very happy with TOPS for the simple kind of things we do, but if you are backing up large amounts of data over AppleTalk, it will be pretty slow. It's very easy to use; you have a desk accessory which starts it up and it's easily learned by novices. Once you've mounted a volume it appears as an icon on the desktop just like any other disk. Hope this helps.... ||| Boyd Ostroff - Tech Director - Dept of Theatre - SUNY Oswego ||| Sys Admin - "The CallBoard" - (315) 947-6414 - 1200/2400 baud ||| ostroff@oswego.oswego.edu - cboard!ostroff@oswego.oswego.edu
boris@world.std.com (Boris Levitin) (06/15/90)
ostroff@Oswego.EDU (Boyd Ostroff) writes: >In article <1438@philtis.cft.philips.nl> grant@cft.philips.nl (Joe Grant) writes: >>Hi Net, >> >> I need some information on Tops. I have a Mac II with an ethernet >We have two mac plusses and a mac II running TOPS over AppleTalk (LocalTalk) >in our office. >> >> 1. There are two other Macs that I know of in the building, so >> maybe they'll also be able to use the Tops solution. Neither has an >> ethernet card, will this be a problem? >As long as you're happy with the 230KBaud speed of AppleTalk, this should >not be a problem. >> >> 2. If I can backup over Tops, what software would be required to run >> the backup or is it bundled with Tops - wishful thinking? I realise >Tops just lets you mount remote volumes. They behave exactly like they >were a hard disk connected directly to your local mac. You should be able >to use any program just like the TOPS volume was local (with the exception >that you can't copy the System file over TOPS for some reason). >> Any general info. people have on Tops would also be of great help. >We're very happy with TOPS for the simple kind of things we do, but if you >are backing up large amounts of data over AppleTalk, it will be pretty >slow. It's very easy to use; you have a desk accessory which starts it >up and it's easily learned by novices. Once you've mounted a volume it >appears as an icon on the desktop just like any other disk. Hope this >helps.... >||| Boyd Ostroff - Tech Director - Dept of Theatre - SUNY Oswego >||| Sys Admin - "The CallBoard" - (315) 947-6414 - 1200/2400 baud >||| ostroff@oswego.oswego.edu - cboard!ostroff@oswego.oswego.edu My two cents: A few programs don't recognize Tops remote volumes correctly, and the popular Redux backup program by Microseeds, for one, doesn't (system crashes when you attempt to select a Tops volume as the source). I back up over Tops to a Microtech R45 removable 45MB drive, but since Redux refuses to work, I do a normal Finder copy operation. Over two bridges and some bizarre wiring I still get 15MB per hour. Not at all bad given the circumstances, but insufficient for some people. Boris Levitin WGBH-TV Boston boris@world.std.com wgbh@harvarda.harvard.edu
straka@cbnewsc.att.com (richard.j.straka) (06/15/90)
In article <1990Jun15.002524.8985@world.std.com> boris@world.std.com (Boris Levitin) writes: |ostroff@Oswego.EDU (Boyd Ostroff) writes: | ||In article <1438@philtis.cft.philips.nl> grant@cft.philips.nl (Joe Grant) writes: |||Hi Net, ||| I need some information on Tops. I have a Mac II with an ethernet ||| ||| 2. If I can backup over Tops, what software would be required to run ||| the backup or is it bundled with Tops - wishful thinking? I realise | ||Tops just lets you mount remote volumes. They behave exactly like they ||were a hard disk connected directly to your local mac. You should be able ||to use any program just like the TOPS volume was local (with the exception ||that you can't copy the System file over TOPS for some reason). | ||We're very happy with TOPS for the simple kind of things we do, but if you ||are backing up large amounts of data over AppleTalk, it will be pretty ||slow. | |A few programs don't recognize Tops remote volumes correctly, and the |popular Redux backup program by Microseeds, for one, doesn't (system crashes |when you attempt to select a Tops volume as the source). | |I back up over Tops to a Microtech R45 removable 45MB drive, but since Redux |refuses to work, I do a normal Finder copy operation. Over two bridges and |some bizarre wiring I still get 15MB per hour. Not at all bad given the I regularly do backups of my local volume onto a shared Syquest 45M removable across TOPS with Network DiskFit. It works quite reliably and also works well in background under MultiFinder. MF operation DOES slow the local Mac down a bit, but usually in a workable fashion. DiskFit normally relinquishes control to the foreground application quite gracefully. However, TOPS does not allow erasure of a remote vloume (for I guess somewhat obvious reasons). DiskFit *REQUIRES* this erasure of any new disks in the backup set. Therefore, there is a real kludgy workaround that will work if you need only one disk in your backup set. I used this method to start up my backup sets (each partition of my local disk is <40M to keep the sets down to a max of one Syquest cartridge), and once started, everything works fine as one would expect. The workaround is a bit tricky to describe, so I will be glad to do so if sufficient interest warrants. BTW, since TOPS can represent any folder on an HFS volume as an HFS volume, you can actually back up to a FOLDER on the remote drive's platter. This means that you can have multiple disks/volumes backed up to a single Syquest cartridge in some situations (provided you don't exceed the cart's capacity at some inopportune time). -- Richard Straka AT&T Bell Laboratories, IH-6K311 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ UUCP: att!ihlpf!straka MSDOS: All the wonderfully arcane ARPA: straka@ihlpf.att.com syntax of UNIX(R), but without the power.
aras@ecerl1.ece.ncsu.edu (Caglan Aras) (06/15/90)
This is a question to all netters using TOPS. How does TOPS handle imagewriters. For example, given a network of 4 Mac Plus's and two imagewriters, can the machines NOT connected to the Imagewriters access the printers connected to the other machines using TOPS? Or is the best solution just using the apple talk option for the imagewriters? Please reply through mail- I will post a summary. Thanks a lot. Caglan M. Aras aras@eceris.ncsu.edu| Experts know more and N. C State Univ. | more about less and ECE Dept. Robotics Lab | less till they know Raleigh, NC 27695 | everything about nothing!
stoffel@dtoa3.dt.navy.mil (Stoffel) (06/15/90)
In article <1990Jun14.212447.4903@oswego.Oswego.EDU> ostroff@Oswego.EDU (Boyd Ostroff) writes: >In article <1438@philtis.cft.philips.nl> grant@cft.philips.nl (Joe Grant) write >s: > >>Hi Net, >> >> I need some information on Tops. I have a Mac II with an ethernet > >We have two mac plusses and a mac II running TOPS over AppleTalk (LocalTalk) >in our office. (Boyd continues with an excellent summary of the TOPS system) I'd like to add a couple of additional comments. We also have a couple PC's on our TOPS network (along with 6 MAC's), and you can mount a published PC directory on your MAC just as easily. The PC's can also do the same with a MAC volume or folder(s). The PC's need an interface card however. We also recently received our TOPS upgrade to version 3.0 which included a really nice little e-mail program called InBox. It's just as easy to use as the basic TOPS software and really handy. We're still waiting for the DOS version, so can't comment on that yet. I'll post or mail a follow-up if anyone is interested. Bill /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Any statements and opinions are mine | and mine alone, and are in no case | "First things first, but not those of my activity. (Elvis might | necessarily in that order" agree however, I'll ask him tomorrow) | | -The Doctor stoffel@dtoa3.dt.navy.mil | (301) 267-3825 | \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\