| What does it do?
The AppleTalk control panel and its supporting components give your software applications and tools access to the network connections available to your Mac. Older Macs support LocalTalk, an old, slow system which connects to the printer serial port. Macs with Ethernet ports offer EtherTalk (that is, AppleTalk protocols running over much faster Ethernet connections), and many also feature remote access for example, via dial-up connections and AppleTalk Remote Access. TCP/IP protocols, which are used on the Internet, are available over Ethernet, and support PC and other computer connections. How does it work?
This simple control panel is the front of a complex system, based on several Open Transport software libraries contained in your Extensions folder. Switch between different connections and the Mac OS engages the required extensions to drive the network interface, whether built-in or add-in (expansion cards and so on). These extensions include the ‘stacks’ necessary to work the required protocols over each connection, and are the equivalent of ‘Winsock’ or ‘sockets’ software on other machines. They do, in fact, use a slightly different approach, being based on the Unix STREAMS model rather than the sockets methods. What can go wrong with it?
The most common problem is trying to engage Ethernet when not properly connected to an Ethernet network: this will fail until you get hooked up. A break in co-axial ‘thin’ Ethernet cabling can be very frustrating to diagnose and fix. Older versions of Open Transport had bugs and problems, but recent versions are stable and reliable. You should be careful about mixing different versions of AppleTalk, AppleShare and networking software across networks. How can I upgrade it?
AppleShare client software is provided separately with the Mac OS and AppleShare IP server software. Major Open Transport upgrades are also offered separately. All other components of the Mac OS come as part of complete upgrades, while driver software for third-party networking products, such as interface cards, are supported by their suppliers. You can even step up to very fast networking, such as 100Base-T. Third-party products also allow simultaneous access to more than one network. Further info
Web sites worth visiting include a good introduction to networking using both AppleTalk and TCP/IP, which can be found at www.louisville.edu/~lmlars01/indulge/, and Three Macs & A Printer, an excellent ‘small’ networking sites which can be found at threemacs.com/network/index.html | |
