Yes, that's right. My son just bought a 631CD today to tinker with (he has an iMac G5 20" at college). I never was into Macs back then, but didn't the older Macs use AppleTalk or some such? Did they use ethernet or some other connection method? How would I go about connecting (if possible) to the iMac for file transfer and internet? I think it is running some version of System 7, and the CD doesn't seem to work (from what I can tell, which isn't much). How can I tell if the machine "sees" the CD drive? Any help is deeply appreciated.
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Networking a Performa 631CD
- Thread starter danny_w
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You've come to the right place for an answer... 
Go to this page on Shreve Systems' web site and scroll down about half way. It looks like they are selling a 10 megabit ethernet card for the COM slot, and it looks to be compatible with the Performa 630 series, amongst other things.
You'll also find some other interesting stuff on that page. Also check out the rest of Shreve Systems' site; they specialize in old Mac hardware. Who knows what else you might find.
What I would strongly suggest is to backup whatever is on that system that he wants, then nuke that sucker with either the supplied CD, or a System 7.6.1 boot CD. After you've installed the drivers for that card (if there are any), your nice, clean system should also have all the necessary system components installed.
Go to Control Panels > TCP/IP and make sure that card is chosen as the network adapter. After that, turn on file sharing, share one or more folders or share the whole hard drive, and when you check the network from the other end, good Lord willing and the creek don't rise, this computer should show up. I'm thinking you might need to enable AppleTalk on the G5 under System Preferences > Network > (pick your current adapter) > AppleTalk tab > Make AppleTalk Active.
I really haven't dabbled too much myself with Mac OS Classic <-> Mac OS X networking, but I think Apple tried to make the support fairly backward-compatible.
Good luck!
Go to this page on Shreve Systems' web site and scroll down about half way. It looks like they are selling a 10 megabit ethernet card for the COM slot, and it looks to be compatible with the Performa 630 series, amongst other things.
You'll also find some other interesting stuff on that page. Also check out the rest of Shreve Systems' site; they specialize in old Mac hardware. Who knows what else you might find.
What I would strongly suggest is to backup whatever is on that system that he wants, then nuke that sucker with either the supplied CD, or a System 7.6.1 boot CD. After you've installed the drivers for that card (if there are any), your nice, clean system should also have all the necessary system components installed.
Go to Control Panels > TCP/IP and make sure that card is chosen as the network adapter. After that, turn on file sharing, share one or more folders or share the whole hard drive, and when you check the network from the other end, good Lord willing and the creek don't rise, this computer should show up. I'm thinking you might need to enable AppleTalk on the G5 under System Preferences > Network > (pick your current adapter) > AppleTalk tab > Make AppleTalk Active.
I really haven't dabbled too much myself with Mac OS Classic <-> Mac OS X networking, but I think Apple tried to make the support fairly backward-compatible.
Good luck!
Hi! I'm the tinkering son in question. That ethernet card seems like a great idea. Thanks for pointing it out! I'll definitely order that.
I still have two questions. One is about the CD drive. It's definitely receiving power, because it opens and closes, but the computer doesn't seem to see it. Maybe I'm just a System 7 newbie and don't know how to get to it, but data CDs (like the Mac version of Myst I have) don't seem to show up anywhere, and the audio player doesn't see audio CDs I put in. With the help of some instructions, I took the thing apart (which was quite fun) just to make sure nothing was obviously unplugged or something, and it seems okay as far as I can tell. Any idea what I can do? Is my CD drive possibly just busted?
The second thing is that I've read there's a TV card available for this model, that has not only RF input but also composite. That sounds really cool; does anyone know where I can find one? Shreve Systems doesn't have one, and I've searched on Google and eBay and such to no avail.
I still have two questions. One is about the CD drive. It's definitely receiving power, because it opens and closes, but the computer doesn't seem to see it. Maybe I'm just a System 7 newbie and don't know how to get to it, but data CDs (like the Mac version of Myst I have) don't seem to show up anywhere, and the audio player doesn't see audio CDs I put in. With the help of some instructions, I took the thing apart (which was quite fun) just to make sure nothing was obviously unplugged or something, and it seems okay as far as I can tell. Any idea what I can do? Is my CD drive possibly just busted?
The second thing is that I've read there's a TV card available for this model, that has not only RF input but also composite. That sounds really cool; does anyone know where I can find one? Shreve Systems doesn't have one, and I've searched on Google and eBay and such to no avail.