7 Jan
2002
7 Jan
'02
3:45 p.m.
--- Cameron Kaiser <spectre(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu> wrote:
Today, I received my neat-o thing for the week, an ISA
card for
LocalTalk, the software, and an Apple LocalTalk Locking Connector Kit
for DB-9
Which brand of card? Got a picture? Vendor name?
Elation rapidly turned to consternation when I
realised the connector box
doesn't take the PhoneNET wiring, of which I have scads, but rather the
annoying Apple four-conductor locking-style cables.
But if you have a DE-9 PhoneNET adapter, that should go on your ISA
card just fine. Pre-DIN8 Macs had a DE9F for serial.
Anyone out there have some converter box that will
allow me to plug my
existing PhoneNET wiring into this?
When my mother had a typesetting shop full of older Macs, we went from
Apple cable to Farallon PhoneNET (and used the existing yellow-black
pair in the walls for it!) One of the items in the box was a silver
satin cable with an RJ-11 in one end (wired to the yellow-black pair)
and an Apple LocalTalk connector in the other. I do not know what
Apple connector pin maps to black and what to yellow, but I think it
was that simple.
I'd like to get the PC speaking LocalTalk
to the apartment LocalTalk segment, and if possible, I'd like to get the
Commodore on it also with this (being ignorant of the major differences,
the Commodore's SwiftLink has a regular RS-232 9-pin DE-9 on the end ...
could the Apple "DB-9" kit plug directly into that?).
Mac DE9 serial pinout is not the same as the PC-AT serial pinout. In
addition, I expect that the chip in your SwiftLink is some flavor of
ACIA (6850 and the like) as opposed to a 8250/16550 UART or (what's in
a Mac) Z8530. The Z8530 is quite the chip - they appear in Macs, Suns
and late-model COMBOARDs (we programmed them to speak HASP, 3780 and SNA).
I am fairly certain that AppleTalk/LocalTalk depends on the abilities
of the Z8530. While you could probably get another chip to squeeze out
an AppleTalk frame, you'd have to cruft up the layer-1 stuff largely
from scratch if you didn't use a Z8530 or some
descendent.
It's why I think even the ISA AppleTalk cards have a Z8530 on them
(the one I have does). It makes the software easier to write if the
underlying hardware is identical.
I do not know of a 6502 implementation of LocalTalk except for the
Apple IIgs. I suppose you could build a Z8530 SIO for the C-64, but
having written 68K assembler for it, it's not a trivial chip to
program.
-ethan
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