Tom Lyon ✅A personal history about #AppleTalk and #SunMicrosystems
Stuart Marks@aka_pugs Cool! I remember AppleTalk cabling seeming to be simpler than Ethernet, which had only thicknet and vampire taps at the time. But AppleTalk connectors proved to be a weak point. If the network was flaky, you had to go around and reseat all the connectors. Eventually we got little clips that held the connectors together. It helped a bit.
To this day I still use AFP to move files among Macs on my home network. That will eventually stop working though.
🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑@stuartmarks @aka_pugs
Thin coax Ethernet (aka Cheapermet) didn't need vampire taps, and was introduced several years before Appletalk, though it wasn't standardized as 10BASE-2 until 1984. It was already in widespread use instead of thick coax by that time. AppleTalk over twisted pair wiring, later renamed LocalTalk, was introduced in 1985.
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Thin coax Ethernet (aka Cheapermet) didn't need vampire taps, and was introduced several years before Appletalk, though it wasn't standardized as 10BASE-2 until 1984. It was already in widespread use instead of thick coax by that time. AppleTalk over twisted pair wiring, later renamed LocalTalk, was introduced in 1985.
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@stuartmarks @aka_pugs
LocalTalk was slightly easier to install, because it was self-terminating, but it's cabling and attachment boxes were more expensive than coax cable and tees.
The key advantage of LocalTalk was that every Macintosh had the host hardware (Z8530 SCC and RS-422 transceivers) built in. Apple didn't offer Ethernet for the Macintosh (EtherTalk) until 1985, and the EtherTalk adapters were initially quite expensive.
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LocalTalk was slightly easier to install, because it was self-terminating, but it's cabling and attachment boxes were more expensive than coax cable and tees.
The key advantage of LocalTalk was that every Macintosh had the host hardware (Z8530 SCC and RS-422 transceivers) built in. Apple didn't offer Ethernet for the Macintosh (EtherTalk) until 1985, and the EtherTalk adapters were initially quite expensive.
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@stuartmarks @aka_pugs
Many Macintosh users chose Farralon PhoneNet as a substitute for LocalTalk, as it was cheaper and used ordinary twisted pair phone wiring, though it needed terminators.
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Many Macintosh users chose Farralon PhoneNet as a substitute for LocalTalk, as it was cheaper and used ordinary twisted pair phone wiring, though it needed terminators.
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@brouhaha @aka_pugs I guess where I was in the mid 1980s (Stanford) had already invested in thicknet, so we didn’t see much thinnet around. We only dabbled with AppleTalk, but the Mac’s could only talk to each other, and getting the Macs on ethernet didn’t happen until later. Oh yeah, PhoneNet… that’s why Farallon was familiar. That helped with the cables and connections, but still, the Mac’s didn’t connect to anything else.
IIRC a PhoneNet terminator was an RJ-11 connector with a resistor. ☺️
Rich Alderson@stuartmarks @brouhaha @aka_pugs
Ralph, Len, and Sandy running thicknet cable through the steam tunnels at night certainly qualifies as “heavily invested”!
Ralph, Len, and Sandy running thicknet cable through the steam tunnels at night certainly qualifies as “heavily invested”!
@alderson @brouhaha @aka_pugs Ok you’re really testing my memory now! I remember steam tunnels. I vaguely recall Len (Bosack), Sandy (Lerner), and Ralph (Gorin?) but more from LOTS than anything else. But I don’t think I ever heard anything about them running thicknet through the steam tunnels!
I did interact with Ralph a little bit. I seem to remember calling him at 3am when LOTS had crashed and didn’t come back up, and his number was on this list of numbers to call when that happened…