Looks like there was also one other product along the same lines - Mauswerks's "BootToob."
Both Sonic's The Diskless Mac and Mauswerks's BootToob used a ROM chip to replace the factory ROM chip in an installed Ethernet card. This new ROM would connect to the network at startup, load a boot image into RAM on the client Mac, disconnect from the network, and continue booting. Cost was $139-149 per client and required an AppleShare Server running MacTCP (or a UNIX server in the case of Sonic's TDM) on the network. BootToob info, from TidBITS #73, 22 July 1991 http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-073.html TechnoBITS/22-Jul-91 There's been a lot of grumbling among my academic friends about how hard it is to protect a Macintosh in a public lab. Apparently the best solution so far is to use Suitcase II to load DAs into the Apple Menu and to make the entire System Folder invisible. What they would all like though, is the ability to boot the Mac remotely over an Ethernet network. A company called Mauswerks has a product that can do just that. BootToob, as it's called, replaces a ROM on an Apple or Asante Ethernet card with one that creates a RAM disk at startup, loads the boot image into that RAM disk over the network, disconnects from the network, and continues to boot. A number of Macs can share the same image file, which must be stored on a Mac running MacTCP on the network. Right now, BootToob retails for $139 for one Mac and one server, and $995 for ten Macs. It requires a Mac II-class machine with a minimum of 2 MB, but Mauswerks plans versions of the BootToob for the SE/30, the LC, the IIsi, and SCSI devices (I guess that means the Nodem - I haven't heard of any other SCSI-based Ethernet adapters). Of course, Apple is certainly working on this sort of thing too, but who knows how long it might take for them to get a product out the door. Mauswerks -- 614/294-7300 Related articles: MacWEEK -- 29-Jan-91, Vol. 5, #4, pg. 15 The DIskless Mac info, from TidBITS #94, 18 November 1991 http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-094.html NewsBITS/18-Nov-91 ... I haven't heard too much about this subject recently, having moved away from Cornell and its public computer rooms, but at one point I was very interested in getting a Mac to boot to a network. Actually, my low tech solution was a cheap SCSI device that held a small storage device, perhaps EPROMs. That would then work with any Mac, rather than requiring a network. (And anyone who wants to use my idea can pay me royalties and I'll tell them the rest of the details :-)). However, a more logical situation for public rooms with Ethernet installed is to use something like Sonic Systems's recently-announced The Diskless Mac (TDM). TDM is a ROM chip that replaces ROM chips on popular Ethernet cards and includes software that loads an image of the System Software into a RAM disk on the client Mac. One of TDM's claims to fame is that it will work with a Unix server as well as with an AppleShare server, which increases its flexibility. I don't know if BootToob, the other remote booting package, supports this (see TidBITS-073 for more information on BootToob). The advantage of remote booting should be obvious - client Macs don't need hard disks, easier network administration, viruses having a harder time spreading, and simpler software protection. The only drawbacks to this sort of thing are that it requires an Ethernet network, which isn't as cheap or as common as LocalTalk networks, it requires extra RAM (my guess is that 4 MB would be the minimum after you devote 1 MB to the RAM disk and 1.5 MB for the System to use for normal operation; check your About this Macintosh... to see how much your System is using), and it costs an extra $149 per Mac. Still, for the protection and convenience it offers (I wrote the moron-proof instructions for rebuilding a public hard disk from backups at Cornell, and it would have been wonderful if those Macs hadn't required rebuilding all the time), TDM could easily pay for itself in no time. Sonic Systems -- 408/736-1900 I think some condensed variant of this may end up going in the FAQ. -- the pickle FAQ <http://macfaq.org/index.shtml> _________________________________________________________________ -- Compact Macs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/>. Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Compact Macs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/compact.shtml> The FAQ: <http://macfaq.org/> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive:<http://www.mail-archive.com/compact.macs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
