I have a similar setup. I have LocalTalk only printers (Personal LW NT, LW II NTX, LW Select 360, StyleWriter 2500 with LocalTalk adapter) that I connect to ethernet only Mac's with an Asante LocalTalk bridge. I've also used LocalTalk bridge and got good results using a spare Quadra 800 as a bridge-router. I actually have a HP4siMX at work that speaks AppleTalk. My Plus at work can print to it using the PowerMac 6100 as an AppleTalk to Ethernet bridge.
The other Mac printer I have at home is a LW 8500 that has built-in ethernet TCP/IP printing as well as Localtalk. No bridge necessary. Jeff is right. As a network tech, the most expensive item is the labor cost. Cable is cheap. We pay around $45.00 per thousand foot box for Cat5e. When I ran my home network I cheated - my walls were open during construction, so I ran a bit over 4000 feet in my house. My office at home is the upstairs "media room". It has 8 plates with 4 Cat5 jacks in each and I made a big mistake. It's not enough. All of my cables terminate in my server closet on two 48 port patch panels. I would run more cable, but 3/4 of the house is un accessable. It's a PITA to run more cable in a two story house. I have three Netgear EN524 24-port 10BaseT hubs, a DS516 16-port 10/100 hub and a FS516 16-port 10/100 switch as well as a Netgear VPN router-firewall to connect to the cable modem and provide VPN connectivity to my office downtown. The Asante-Talk bridge resides there as well. As far as connecting your LocalTalk printer to the ethernet network I would tend go with the hardware solution. I've seen the Asante Microprint boxes around surplus stores for under $5.00. I paid $99.00 for my LocalTalk bridge at Fry's, but I share a lot of LocalTalk connections to ethernet. I've seen them a lot cheaper on the used market. Look around at surplus stores, ebay, etc and you will find a bridge. The Asante bridge even allows my NeXT cubes to share the NeXT lasers with the LocalTalk noly Mac's using AppleTalk over ethernet. The SGI Indy also speaks AppleTalk. As far as connecting a 5 port hub to your network jack, one of the ports on your hub, probably the right-most port looking that the front, will be an uplink port. It's usually marked with an "X" or it might have a switch to reverse gender of the port. A lot of "5 port" hubs are really 4 port hubs with an extra uplink port that cannot be used at the same time as the 4th port. The only thing you need to worry about with daisy-chaining hubs is the 5-4-3 rule, but that rarely comes into play in a home network. James >From: "Vaughan, John" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 09:07:38 -0600 >> >> The reason this >>whole scenario has come up is because I only have two Ethernet jacks on the >>wall with my computer (those jacks connecting eventually to a 16-port hub in >>my house). >>I've got three realistic solutions here, and I'm open to input on which >>would be the best option: >>1) Use LocalTalk bridge, allowing Appletalk on both printer and ethernet >>ports, BUT possibly running into OS issues. >>2) Forget Appletalk over the network, give Appletalk over to the printer >>port for the IIg, and rely on TCP File Sharing on the network instead of >>using Appletalk. >>3) Install another hub at my computer location (I've got a 5-port >>somewhere), connecting the LaserWriter and 8600 Ethernet built-in to that >>hub, while allowing the PC Ethernet to have its own jack so it can run >>my VPN connections directly. If this is the option, I'll need some advice >>as to how to make the connection to the central 16-port hub. Do it connect >>the cable from the 5-port to the 16-port's uplink jack or any of the other >>jacks on the 16-port? http://webpages.charter.net/jrice54/classiccomp2.html -- PCI-PowerMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Sonnet & PowerLogix Upgrades - start at $169 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PCI-PowerMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/pci-powermacs.shtml> --> 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/pci-powermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
