The Macintosh Classic - LocalTalk - Ethernet - PPC Project

[bobesch]

Hi there,
last weekend I've got a nice Macintosh Classic as present from dear friends of mine.

I remember 1989, when I didn't own any computer at all, my way to university led by the local Apple provider and beside the cool black and white Apple logo and the firms even cool black and white cangaroo logo, there was only a single Macintosh to bee seen in the store window, which did attract my attention each time I passed by ...

Now, three decades later, the object of my then desire came to me without searching for it at all and I was so surprised and I'm grateful to my friends and to remember these old days.
On the first sight the Macintosh seems to come from an active chimney sweep at work, but that superficial dust will certainly come off easily ...
On the second look it revealed, that everything is in the original condition (Mac, keyboard, mouse and cables) and fully maxed out (4MB RAM / 40MB HDD) and carries a bunch of precious cooking recepies of the previous owner, which I'm gonna recover and hand back to her thankfully.
The installed System7 is somehow stripped down to bare minimum and first step needs to be a new installation of a fully equiped System7 (after having saved the recepies on floppy-drive).
Well, the last days I found myself searching for a way to connect this old guy to my PPCs and that's a real tricky question.
There's the option to use floppy-disks for file transfer (and I've got an USB-floppy drive to connect to e.g. an iMacG3), but a connection of MacintoshClassic/LocalTalk to PPC/Ethernet obviously needs some rare and expensive LocalTalk-Ethernet-connectors ...

I wonder, if there's any magic trick that I didn't figure out yet ... (Maybe "ZTerm" or "ZModemTool" in combination with ClarisWorks?)

Found this about connecting 68k Macintosh via NullModem-cable:
"... if it was only file transfer, you could use a comms program and connect a null modem cable plus a USB-to-serial between your older Macs and newer Macs or PCs. Files could be sent back and forth as compressed archives." (https://www.applefritter.com/content/localtalk-ethernet-adaptor)
So this kind of "DB9 Female to Mini Din 8-pin Male" cable (combined with a Serial-USB-adapter) should do the job as a NullModem-cabel, to connect the Macintosh Classic with an iMacG3/os9.
Next job will be to find the appropriate applications for file transfer via NullModem-connection ...


And a lot of information about networking with old machines can be found here (but so far I didn't get a clue for my question):
http://www.applefool.com/se30/
https://lowendmac.com/network/bridge.shtml
https://web.archive.org/web/20160828214248/http://www.macwindows.com/peertips.html

I really don't know, if and how that might work and unfortunately I can't run any tests now, since the Macintosh currently resides at my son's home 1000miles away from my place and I'm eagerly waiting for an occasion, to get it up here ...

 

[galgot]

Congrats !
Have used this method for connecting the exact same machine, works well if you use a mac running Tiger as a pppd server (Starting with Leopard, its more tricky to set up a pppd), mine is a iMac G5 . I use a Keyspan USA-28XG USB to serial adaptor and a DB9 Female to Mini Din 8-pin Male, that is the old Apple printer serial cable.
In fact you can connect many kind of old machines with this method.

there is also this thread, about using a linux machine (Rpi) to make the pppd, but never tried.

Otherwise, an Asanté SCSI/Ethernet adaptor is faster, but they are rare and expansive. Waited long before finding one.

 

[bobesch]

Congrats !
Have used this method for connecting the exact same machine, works well if you use a mac running Tiger as a pppd server (Starting with Leopard, its more tricky to set up a pppd), mine is a iMac G5 . I use a Keyspan USA-28XG USB to serial adaptor and a DB9 Female to Mini Din 8-pin Male, that is the old Apple printer serial cable.
In fact you can connect many kind of old machines with this method.
there is also this thread, about using a linux machine (Rpi) to make the pppd, but never tried.
Otherwise, an Asanté SCSI/Ethernet adaptor is faster, but they are rare and expansive. Waited long before finding one.

Hi there, thanks god another soul ...
which progs do you use for file transfer between 68k and PPC? So far I've found ZTerm and ZModemTool (in combination with ClarisWorks) but wasn't able to give them a try yet ...

 

[galgot]

It's a problem when there is nothing on the Mac Classic to start with
If there is already a terminal tool that can do ZModem file transfert, like ZTerm , then you can use that by doing a Zmodem serial connection with ZTerm (exist also for OS X PPC) between both machines. But its very slow and buggy. like that you can transfert FreePPP (or macPPP) for dialing to your pppd server, and iCab or fetch for using that connection.

But either ways you'll need to get that tool on the Mac Classic first to be able the receive some files... so its a bit of a chicken and egg problem if you can't use a floppy to put it there.

 

[bobesch]

It's a problem when there is nothing on the Mac Classic to start with
If there is already a terminal tool that can do ZModem file transfert, like ZTerm , then you can use that by doing a Zmodem serial connection with ZTerm (exist also for OS X PPC) between both machines. But its very slow and buggy. like that you can transfert FreePPP (or macPPP) for dialing to your pppd server, and iCab or fetch for using that connection.

But either ways you'll need to get that tool on the Mac Classic first to be able the receive some files... so its a bit of a chicken and egg problem if you can't use a floppy to put it there.

Yep, I'll keep my fingers crossed for the floppy-drive (couldn't test it yet), since I also need to reinstall an unrestricted System7.
But now I have much clarer concepts, how to proceed:
- Get that "DB9 Female to Mini Din 8-pin Male" NullModem-Cable and a serial-USB-adapter cable
- connect 68k-Mac with PCC-Mac
- run ZTerm on both 68k- and PPC-Mac for FileTransfer.
If I'm running freePPP/iCab or Fetch on the 68k-Mac, do I have access to the PPCs file-system?

 

[galgot]

Yes, once you're connected via ppp, if you activate ftp sharing on your PPC machine , you’ll be able to access it via Fetch, or with iCab if you active WebSharing .
MacLynx is good too (and faster) for transferring files from a Web server.
But be sure to .sit (stuffit) and encode in .hqx (BinHex) the files you want to transfert via ftp, web or zmodem. cause these file transfert methods destroys mac resources files datas, and you end up with non-working apps.
So you also need a Stuffit expander on the Mac Classic … And the correct version.

Once connected , your MacClassic should also be able to see other Macs running classic OSes shared on your local network , via the Chooser. Sharing files with these with don’t requires encoding as old AFP protocol don’t destroys mac resources files datas.

 

[topcat001]

So beautiful! Congratulations! I've always dreamt of owning one.

 

[bobesch]

Yes, once you're connected via ppp, if you activate ftp sharing on your PPC machine , you’ll be able to access it via Fetch, or with iCab if you active WebSharing .
MacLynx is good too (and faster) for transferring files from a Web server.
But be sure to .sit (stuffit) and encode in .hqx (BinHex) the files you want to transfert via ftp, web or zmodem. cause these file transfert methods destroys mac resources files datas, and you end up with non-working apps.
So you also need a Stuffit expander on the Mac Classic … And the correct version.

Once connected , your MacClassic should also be able to see other Macs running classic OSes shared on your local network , via the Chooser. Sharing files with these with don’t requires encoding as old AFP protocol don’t destroys mac resources files datas.

Oh, wow, thanks! I'm looking foreward to try out all that stuff ASAP - maybe in advance with an emulator ...

 

[bobesch]

Finally my long awaited Macintosh Classic "came home" this week.
I had eagerly tried to figure out all kind of stuff using the Mini vMac Emulator, which had been good fun so far.
In the meantime also a PowerBook G3 (Wallstreet) found it's way to my place: equipped with both a Mini8SerialSocket and Ethernet, but unfortunately no USB-port.
Together with the Macintosh Classic arrived the full set of System7 floppies, that I got for 10 bucks.
First I saved some precious files from the Macintosh and after having recovered that files, I was lucky to add them to my CD-version of an Instant-Mini-vMac-project (both Win-PC and PPC/intel-Mac versions), that was meant as a present to the old lady, who donated the Classic. I hope she'll enjoy the same way, I do while tinkering with the old Macintosh and all.
Then a time of suffering started:
- inserting a 3,5 floppy repeatedly cause the Mac to crash. I don't know, why. Maybe an electrostatic issue ...
- booting from the System7 installation-floppies and trying to install System7 failed several times due to the floppy-disk-crash, that appeared as soon as I had to insert disk2
- a SCSI iomega100zip-drive was not recognized.
Luckily the Classic has a bootable System6 located in ROM that can be used for booting by pressing ALT-CMD-X-O on launch.
Then I had the idea to run the System7 installations floppies (6 or 7) from within the System6-ROM-boot and I was lucky, that the installation procedure ran without any crash. Puuuh!

Next: trying to connect via AppleTalk
I've read a lot about Apple's LocalTalk and Farallon's PhoneNet hardware-equipment to establish an AppleTalk-network.
Lucky, I didn't go for any of those sophisticated adapters, since the Macintosh Classic and the Wallstreet simpy could be connected by using a Mini8Serial printer-cable.
So after starting FileSharing and AppleTalk on the Macintosh Classic I was able to connect the Wallstreet to the Classic, but trying this the other way round made the Classic crash.
While being connected to the classic via LocalTalk/AppleTalk(Mini8Serial), the Wallstreet is also able to use Ethernet for Internet-connection and also FileSharing via TCP/IP at the same time, which makes the Wallstreet a link between 68k and System9/PPC:
Macintosh Classic < [AppleTalk] < PowerBookG3(Wallstreet) <> [Ethernet/AFP/FTP /w Netpresenz] <> newer Macs

Well, using Floppies for file transfer would have been a bit more "convenient" - especially after I found a few old funky floppy-drives, that resemble the style and color of the iMac-G3 Fruit-Colors series.
After all, the different file-system of 68k-Macs and "ClassicOS" (<OSX) is really tricky, when it comes to file-exchange