Re: Apple Macintosh computers/appletalk/ethernet

Keith Thomas (thomask@supernet.ab.ca)
Sat, 30 Mar 1996 12:57:20 EST

At 11:02 PM 27/03/96, Robert Brinkley wrote:
>Many of our macs have appletalk ports. We purchased imagewriter and
>laserwriter printers and they are connected to these appletalk ports. We
>have LCII, III, 550 and PowerPC series macs.
>
>The problem is that these macs are on an ethernet network and won't print
>when logged on. We have to shut down the mac and restart it and NOT log on
>to the network to get the imagewriter or laserwriter printer to print.
>
>This seems extremely inconvienient. Is there any solution at all that will
>enable us to print to these printers while logged on to the ethernet network?

Robert:

If the Imagewriter has an Appletalk card installed and the Laserwriters
have Localtalk ports, then you will be able to share them with your network
of Ethernet Macs. To share them however, requires a slight shift in your
connectivity plans.

Option #1

Connect all your Localtalk printers (and any Localtalk Macs) together
either via star controller. This Localtalk network would then need to be
connected to the Ethernet network via a router. The router enables the two
networks to communicate with each other. You can connect up to 48 LocalTalk
devices to Ethernet with one product if you purchase a StarRouter from
Farallon (http://www.farallon.com).

(Localtalk devices)--[StarRouter]--(Ethernet devices)

Option #2

Farallon also makes another product called LocalPath which is a software
solution to connecting up to 8 LocalTalk devices to Ethernet.

I don't have any experience with the software option, but I can vouch for
the hardware option. Farallon products are excellent and they have
Educational Institution Discounts.

Keith Thomas
thomask@supernet.ab.ca