willdm@unix.cis.pitt.edu (William D Moore) (04/10/91)
Howdy, I'm in the process of setting up an ethernet network for the three Mac SE's at my place of work at the Unversity of Pittsburgh. I've also decided to place an HP LaserJet III with a PostScript cartridge, 2 MB of memory, and an Etherprint box on this network, too. Yesterday I received a copy of the order, made by our adminstrators, for a PostScript cartridge, memory, and an AppleTalk Interface card. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ My question is if I'm going to have three macs running on ethernet, do I still need an Appletalk Interface card for the LaserJet? Since the LaserJet and the SE's will be communicating via ethernet, Appletalk protocols will not be involved at all, right? I've tried to ask somebody here at Pitt, but haven't received an answer yet. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. thanks, Will @ Pitt
resnick@cogsci.uiuc.edu (Pete Resnick) (04/10/91)
willdm@unix.cis.pitt.edu (William D Moore) writes: >an HP LaserJet III with a PostScript cartridge, 2 MB of memory, and an >Etherprint box on this network, too. Yesterday I received a copy of the >order, made by our adminstrators, for a PostScript cartridge, memory, and >an AppleTalk Interface card. > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >My question is if I'm going to have three macs running on ethernet, do I still >need an Appletalk Interface card for the LaserJet? Since the LaserJet and the >SE's will be communicating via ethernet, Appletalk protocols will not be >involved at all, right? Layers, layers, layers. Let's all get this straight. Ethernet is a low-level protocol that happens to run over a certain kind of hardware, confusingly referred to as Ethernet. Appletalk is a higher level protocol that takes care of its own low-level protocol when it is run over LocalTalk, but gets wrapped in the Ethernet protocol when it is running on Ethernet hardware. Any printing you do from your Macs is most certainly going to be in Appletalk protocol, just wrapped in Ethernet for its low-level transport. Now, Etherprint boxes only convert from Appletalk-on-Ethernet to Appletalk- on-LocalTalk. So your HP, which comes from the factory with only a serial and/or parallel port, better learn to speak Appletalk to talk to the Etherprint box, and connect to the LocalTalk port on it, hence your card. pr -- Pete Resnick (...so what is a mojo, and why would one be rising?) Graduate assistant - Philosophy Department, Gregory Hall, UIUC System manager - Cognitive Science Group, Beckman Institute, UIUC Internet/ARPAnet/EDUnet : resnick@cogsci.uiuc.edu BITNET (if no other way) : FREE0285@UIUCVMD