Can I network one old mac with new emac?

Considering how hard to come by SCSI ethernet kits are, you may be better served with a USB floppy drive.

-iantm

Hey,

. . . but I'm not qualified to make that determination. As for ethernet setup the answer is Yup. And I've done it with a MacTV and a PowerMac running a much later system. For the most part, networking in Classic is a breeze. All you need is the adapter and the software. Since you're just moving text the speed hit won't be noticed. Hope your MacTV stays fine. Those are some hinky machines.

The PowerMac runs 10.4 Tiger and I meant to say that I would run the file sharing with the old mac in the eMac's System 9 environment. It sounds like this will work, yes? Can you point me to the precise adapter and software I'll need? Yeah, the Mac TV is like a reliable old friend. Never has let me down.

Many thanks.

Hey,

Love that warm Sony Trini screen on that MacTV. Had mine hooked up to a VCR. The SCSI/ethernet adapter was an Asante EN/SC. The other poster to this thread raised two extremely valid points: The rarity of the adapters and the ease of a USB floppy. If you're going for the ethernet for the fun and vintage-ness of it, that's one thing. If you just want to move files consider the USB floppy. Check MacResQ (but don't overpay for it) or the LEM swaplist for the Asante adapter.

... with the SCSI to ethernet adapter; I doubt it would work on that machine. I think they were designed to work with the early Macs, and there were no drivers written for anything after 6.x. I had one that worked swell with an SE running 6.0.8, but locked up an LC running 7.1 with or without extensions loaded. I tried it once and never went back

The machine is based on the LC550, so you should be able to add an LC PDS slot ethernet adapter to it. I wonder though, because Low End Mac says there is no expansion slot. Maybe it's occupied by a TV tuner that could be pulled temporarily for the file swap? Anybody know the insides of a Mac TV well enough to know?

If it'll work, the LC PDS slot ethernet cards are still pretty easy to obtain; I saw one for sale in the Low End Mac swap list just yesterday for $15. I can forward the post to you by IM if you like.

Hey,

. . . won't go and the last thing you want to do is pull things out of a MacTV. Especially the video guts that were not designed to be removed, MacTVs were Apple's only machine aimed directly at the consumer electronics market. Cool as they might be they aren't built to the usual (at that time) Apple standards. I think using a USB floppy on the eMac or whatever the other machine is is the best idea since you don't want to put any strain on the MacTV that can be avoided. But the ethernet adapter will work. BTDT.

I'd agree about not pulling parts out of the MacTV. Given their rarity it's worth maintaining them in pristine shape - which is why I assume our poster is looking for ethernet options in the first place, instead of getting another 68K Mac.

To clarify about the scsi to ethernet adapters - the Asante model will work with OS 7, and I've used it on a PB 180 with 7.5.5. There are two different cables for the Asante model - one with the PB type small scsi connector, and one with a DB-25.

But instead of those, I'd aim for a localtalk to ethernet bridge. My understanding is some have successfully used the versions intended for printers, but I have that only on here-say.

There's the option of using another Mac as a localtalk to ethernet bridge, but that's rather silly, as you could be using that other Mac for your writing software instead of the MacTV.

I do have a couple of the localtalk to ethernet adapters for printers somewhere, and if I have a chance I'll see if I can get one to network.

I was in no means suggesting that he start making permanent modifications to the machine to make it ethernet compatible; my suggestion was made on the assumption that since the Mac TV was a modified LC550, the tv tuner was occupying the PDS slot that is present on the 550. Which is why LEM listed the Mac TV as having no expansion slots. (Again, just an assumption since the only Mac TV I've ever laid eyes on is a demo model in the local Best Buy store back when they were new.)

Also, I guess I should have read the post more thoroughly, as from the title and a quick glance at the first paragraph of the original post, the impression I got was that he was upgrading from the Mac TV to the eMac, and only wanted to get files from one to the other. For what the user wants to do, the USB floppy idea is probably the best solution.

Sorry.

I've confirmed now that the Asante Micro Asanteprint will allow localtalk Macs to access ethernet. I've connected from my 475 over localtalk to my basement server, and transferred a test file.

The Farallon bridge did now allow the 475 to see the network.

davintosh; no worries, mate! I just didn't think he'd want to remove the TV card in favour of an ethernet card, and risk losing or damaging the TV component.

Greetings all,

It's great to find a forum with such dedicated and expert Mac enthusiasts. I'm sorry my posts are so wordy but hope you all can bear with me.

So I can be clear on the steps, risks and workability of networking the new eMac running system 10.4 with the MacTV, I thought I should review what I hope to do, what I understand, then invite any new comments and insights.

If there is a better than even chance that I could harm the Mac TV, I would choose to live with the cumbersome setup I have now: I use the old machine with it's early operating system so I can use MindWrite, a word processing program that dates to System 6 and my original computer, a Mac 512K. (To get the program to work, I have to toggle in a control panel the addressing from 32 to 16 bits). I do all of my organizing and writing of magazine articles with that MindWrite program on the MacTV. But I have to do everything else, such as email, internet, text formatting on the new eMac.

So, using two machines and transferring files (or even handwriting notes off the eMac screen), I find myself spinning in my chair to work on one computer, then the other. What I hope to do is sit at the eMac and operate the Mindwrite program through a connection to the eMac (running Classic), very much as I did years ago when I connected a Powerbook Duo 230 to the Mac TV.

I should mention that I pushed the Mac TV to System 7.5.3 when I was trying to get it to do some new things like using an early Netscape browser. This system upgrade did cause some problems. But, now, I could go back and install the original software, System 7.1 or even try System 6 to avoid the freezing that Davintosh described when he networked a PowerMac to an SE running 7.1.

Here's what I do or don't understand:

1. If I network the computers, can I operate--from the eMac--the MindWrite program on the MacTV?

2. I will need to secure either the SCSI/ethernet adapter (Asante EN/SC) which Davinmac mentioned or the Asante Micro Asanteprint cable which eeun tested. Which would be best?

3. Would it be safer to run the Mac TV in System 7.1 (off the Install Me First disk) or trying going back to System 6?

Thanks guys.

Unfortunately, no. When running programs across a network, they're still running on the computer you're sitting at, so the emac's 32-bit addressing and OS 9 will not allow MindWrite to run.

Now that I have a better idea of what you're trying to do, there may be a few other options. You may be able to run MindWrite on the emac using an emulator like vMac, though it would require mounting and unmounting disk image files to transfer files from the emulator's images to a folder on the eMac for formatting and editing.
http://www.vmac.org/

Check your inbox here for a message from me.

I would second the emulator option, but, yeah, there's that problem of document transfer. Basilisk II:

http://www.users.bigpond.com/pear_computers/

would allow semi-trasparent access to the eMac's file system from the emulated machine. However, BasiliskII only runs in 32 bit addressing mode. Which sounds like too much for this ancient software to deal with.

--Peace

http://www.jagshouse.com/PlusToiMac.html

my emulator choice: http://minivmac.sourceforge.net/

simply amazing.

dvsjr