

I got on Amazon and ordered “C2G 02318 8-Pin Mini-DIN M/M Serial RS232 Cable, Beige (10 Feet, 3.05 Meters)”. Let’s decompose this and look at each step. With all of this done, each Mac should “see” the other in Chooser, and each Mac should be able to mount volumes from the other and transfer files. All I had to do was physically connect the two machines, printer port to printer port, swap the AppleTalk connection from “Ethernet” (EtherTalk) to “Printer Port” (LocalTalk) and enable File Sharing.
#CYBERDUCK MAC 10.4.11 SOFTWARE#
I concluded from this that the AppleShare/AppleTalk software was already in place and set up properly.

AppleShare File Server) and these two Macs are known to network with each other successfully when using AppleTalk over Ethernet (EtherTalk vs.

Each OS version is preconfigured with AppleShare-based Personal File Sharing (a.k.a.
#CYBERDUCK MAC 10.4.11 MAC OS#
The two machines in question were a Mac IIfx running Mac OS 7.0.1 and a Quadra 840AV running Mac OS 8.1. So, with all this variability in mind, here is EXACTLY what I did to get LocalTalk between two Macs working. In addition, the specific steps to be taken vary based on the version of Mac OS each machine is running, and the exact form of the physical connection being used. The web-based research I did before attempting to connect the two test Macs made it clear that there are a universe of variations on this topic, including the very successful Farallon PhoneNet. It all just worked! How very nice for a change! The last step was then to change the AppleTalk connection from “Ethernet” to “Printer Port” and it should just work…Īnd guess what? …it just did! In a radical departure from the usual narrative of these posts, there were no irrational problems to solve, no major issues to overcome, no new software to load… nothing. Assuming that AppleShare and AppleTalk were already loaded on the Macs, all that was necessary was to connect the Macs together via a LocalTalk cable whose two ends were plugged into the printer port of each Mac. The simplest form of a LocalTalk network involves just two Macs, directly connected via a single LocalTalk cable plugged into the printer port of each.Įverything I have read said that this was the trivial case the easiest form of a LocalTalk network that could be put together. When my efforts to LocalTalk between my Apple IIGS and a Mac failed miserably, I decided to drop back and make sure I could get LocalTalk to work between two Macs first, thus ensuring that I had a reasonable grasp of what it takes to make LocalTalk go. This may seem slow by today’s standards, but back in the mists of time, when the 1200 baud modem (a glacial 1.2 Kbps!) was the speed king of the day, 230 Kbps seemed blazingly fast! LocalTalk was capable of the whopping great transfer rate of 230 Kbps. A long time ago, in a land far, far away… before ethernet was widely deployed, Macs were networked via AppleShare over AppleTalk, which itself made use of LocalTalk, a serial connection between two or more Macs, printers etc.
