Subject: Re: Apple IIgs and Mac IIsi AppleTalk connection. Help needed.
From: [email-masked] (Phil Beesley)
Date: Mon, 09 Feb 1998 13:27:25 +0000
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2

In article <[email-masked]>,
[email-masked] wrote:

> >To hook up a Macintosh to a Windows 95 peer-to-peer network you need a
> >commercial software called DAVE. It's a kind of Mac client for Win95/Win
> >NT networks.
> 
> Can you tell me what DAVE is and where I can order it?

Windows 95 peer-to-peer networks use a package of software that Microsoft
describe as the "Client for Microsoft Networks". This same software is
also used for connecting a Win95 PC to an Windows NT network. The client
can sit on a number of different networking protocols; Microsoft's default
protocol is NetBEUI but the client also works with TCP/IP and IPX.

DAVE is the Mac equivalent of the "Client for Microsoft Networks". ISTR
that DAVE contains a Mac implementation of NetBEUI plus the utilities for
mounting Microsoft network volumes. DAVE probably works over the TCP/IP
protocol too.

For a network containing an Apple IIGS, DAVE doesn't have anything to
offer. A Mac running DAVE would be able to see PC server volumes and PC
printers but the IIGS would remain excluded.

It makes much more sense to base a network around the AppleTalk protocol
that the IIGS understands. Using either LocalTalk or PhoneNet cabling you
can connect the IIGS to the Mac and to a suitably equipped laser printer
or ImageWriter. 

A PC fitted with a LocalTalk card -- these were sold by Dayna and Daystar
as well as by Apple and Farallon -- and running either Miramar's MacLAN
software for Windows or an older version of Farallon's Timbuktu package
would also be able to see the same network resources as the IIGS and Mac.
Using the same software, the PC and Mac could communicate using ethernet
but this would exclude the IIGS of course. 

Fortunately there are several ways of bridging from ethernet to LocalTalk
or PhoneNet. The quickest is to use a software bridge on the Mac --
"LocalTalk Bridge" from Apple ($) or a similar freeware product from Sonic
Systems that is only intended to work on their Mac ethernet cards. You may
also be able to find a dedicated bridge (eg Cayman Systems GatorBox or
Kinetics FastPath) on the second hand market. A third option for the very
serious is to install a LocalTalk card into a dedicated NetWare/NT/Lan
Manager server to provide the bridge.

Phil

-- 
Computer Officer -- Distributed Systems Support 
Computer Centre, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK.