--- Cameron Kaiser <spectre_at_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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Received on Mon Jan 07 2002 - 20:45:17 GMT