Hi all,

I don't know if this is the right place to ask questions like this but I'm in Australia and its an issue with Macs & Appletalk so I'll give it a go....

The scenario is like this. There are three Macs of various vintages. One is a G4 running OS9.1. The others are older, one running OS 8.6 and the other 8.5.

Anyway I've been able to network them together and they talk to each other
when Appletalk is configured to ethernet. However the printers will not work
when this happens as they also use Appletalk. For the life of me I can't find how to get the network
working with TCP/IP. I've been able to give them all IP, using 192.168.0.1
to 3 and a 255.255.255.0 subnet.

So right now I have to either choose to use the printers or use the network. Is there a way to have both printers and network running at the same time?


Thankyou for any advice.

Hey, okker. Welcome to AppleTalk!

I'm sure someone will know about Appletalk networking on here... I don't. :unsure:
I've also had some issues with networking OS9.0.1 and OS 10.3.2, so it'd be handy to hear a solution to your problem.

I guess my first question would be, are the printers network printers, or are they plugged into a host computer? If they're network printers, I'm not sure. But if they're plugged into a host computer, all I can suggest is that maybe you set up a small linux print server. You can use Clark Connect which makes it easy (no need to touch a command line). http://www.clarkconnect.org

Even then I'm not too sure on how it would go sharing things within an AppleTalk network.

If it was OS X, things would be much simpler :P

*waits for elvis to come in and help us out* He knows more about it than I would....

Hmm, I can't remeber exactly how (it's been a while.) But you have to set up AppleShareIP or AppleShare over IP - whatever it's called.

AppleShare IP basically can share anything appletalk over TCP/IP.

Okay,

There are two printers which are both local printers, one to each of the older Macs.

If I have Appleshare over IP you think I can view the printers in the chooser? I will try this, maybe the printers have to be installed through the chooser on each Mac with the Appleshare over IP??

Yes, you need to install the network drivers for each printer on each Mac that the particular printer isn't connected to (ie printer 1: local driver on computer 1 network drivers on computer 2 and 3 - printer 2: local driver on computer 2 network drivers on 1 and 3)

Also, upgrade the G4 to Panther (X.3.2), most of your older apps will work well under Classic and networking is much more powerful and simpler.

Ok

http://www.atpm.com/network/printing/

basically read that. the gist goes. if the printers are usb its no problem. If they are localtalk-ready it's no problem. If the printer manufacture has os9 network drivers you are ok (apple does so if it is apple made...). Other wise you might be in trouble (unless its an ethernet printer and you are just trying to be tricky)

jameso

PS, i typed up a whole how to config your os9 network for Appletalk-over-ip but decided it was useless because i found that page on the web. google kicks ass.