Eagle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:So, what are you guys trying to accomplish, exactly?
I was under the impression that we were trying to share files, in a convenient manner, between System 6 and OS X. System 6 doesn't include personal file sharing, and OS X is too snobbish to act as a server for System 6 clients.
I wonder if OS X could be a client for the standalone System 6-based AppleTalk Server product... Marten?
With a new enough AppleShare client, System 7 can still talk to Panther
AppleShare server.
The last time I checked, this wasn't the System 6+1 list. ;-)
I know - I was just providing some additional details. :)
Well, we're talking about networking things that are more than 15 years
apart in age. In computer time, that's more than one generation.
Apple has done an incredible job of keeping compatibility with older
hardware and software, but eventually the cord must be cut -- as it was
with Panther only running on New World machines, for example.
Well, there are at least many levels of support to consider here, but we are
mostly concerned with interoperability here. You should expect machines to
be interoperable over a span of decades, not years, if you want to be taken
seriously.
Microsoft products frequently don't interoperate from version to version, much less "over a span of decades." Are you saying Microsoft are to not be taken seriously?
It isn't an unrealistic expectation either. For example: you
can use TCP/IP to connect the most modern machine to some prehistoric ones.
Why wasn't AppleShare more robust? In fact, you should be able to use
System 6 clients with a netatalk server (on a Linux box).
There are at least a couple things working against us here: - physical networking differences (ethernet versus LocalTalk) - protocol differences (TCP/IP versus AppleTalk)
You can solve the first issue a few ways: - SCSI-ethernet adapter on the older machine - LocalTalk/Ethernet bridge - serial port card in your Power Mac
The second issue can only be solved with more software. Potential solutions include:
- A TCP/IP AppleShare client for System 6
- An AppleTalk protocol for OS X
The first of these is unlikely to happen, but the second is a possibility with netatalk. We might be able to compile netatalk on OS X, and share files that way. Since Panther no longer directly supports AppleTalk, if we can't do it with netatalk, I'm not sure what we can do.
Why should you expect that level of support? Well, there are a number of
reasons why businesses would need it: they may be using some custom
software, or they may be unable to justify the cost of upgrading a
particular computer (say their fax servers). But we should all be familiar
with a more mundane example: sometimes applications break under new versions
of the operating system, and it is difficult to find suitable replacements.
Of course, and that SE or Plus running System 6 is at least as useful as it was in 1990. There comes a time, though, when forward compatibility ceases to exist. I think 13 years is pretty good, actually. Continue to use your SE just as you have, but for file sharing you need to have an intermediary - something, anything, running 7.0-10.2, that both computers can talk to.
Besides, why should computers be so different from consumer electronics of
the past? I seem to recall buying televisions and stereos which lasted well
over a decade (sans repairs), and the interface between components hasn't
changed radically either.
Actually, it has. Way back in the day, video devices interfaced only via RF modulators, over flat cable. Later it was RF over coax. Then devices interfaced with composite video, then with S-video, and now component video. Modern TVs (i.e. monitors with tuners) have a mix of coax, S-video, and composite inputs, and sometimes component video inputs. Monitors (i.e. those without tuners; e.g. LCD projectors) don't have the coax input - they only have one of the other line level direct video feed inputs. I challenge you to get an original VCR (that is, one with only coax connectors) working with a new monitor ... without some sort of intermediary. You won't be able to do it, but that doesn't mean the original VCR is necessarily worthless. It just means that to use it with today's monitors you need an adapter. Same here with 18-year-old Mac Plusses.
I mean, my family has had television cable for
about twenty years. Heck, free broadcast is still available. But somehow
marketeers can introduce the word "digital" into a product and it is
obsolete and must be replaced the day it is shipped. I was listening to the
radio the other day and classic Macs were described as "useless" and as
"boat anchors". Well, if they are so bloody useless, why did people buy
them in the first place?
Again, they're not useless. They just don't do all of the things most people want them to do today - they're still as useful as they were the day they were bought.
The simple fact of the matter is that we are conditioned to believe that
things need to be replaced soon after they are declared obsolete, and that
dumping support for last year's product because of that is okay. Well, it
isn't okay and we should expect more.
I agree. I still have a Timex/Sinclair ZX81 that works... or it did the last time I connected it to my TV, but since it only has an RF output it's kind of a mess to hook it to my TV nowadays. Especially since I use my TV solely as a monitor for my home theatre system, and only the TiVo uses the coax input - everything else is run via S-Video. I don't even have the 300-to-75 ohm adapter I would need.
Note: I'm not saying that there are no or few benefits to OS X or XP or
whatever. People who do things like video production clearly need much more
powerful computers, and I don't want to deprive them of that. In a similar
vein, if an old computer serves my needs I believe that other people should
show the same respect for my decision as I show for theirs. Among other
things, that means that my hardward should not become artificially obsolete.
Your hardware is not "obsolete." It's not the latest, but it can still do today everything that (and more than) it could when it was built. You haven't mentioned anything that your computer was designed to do, that it can no longer do. You have, however, mentioned that your 14-year-old hardware and software won't connect to this year's software. Boo hoo - use an intermediate solution - something running 7.0-10.2.
For example: even when using 68k Macs, I'm often "forced" to use System 7.x
(horror of horrors!) because certain types of software aren't very common in
the System 6 world.
You're not forced to run that System 7-only software.
Among other things, there isn't a *functional* System 6 web browsers and I'm not aware of a System 6 SSH client.
There wasn't ANY web browser until several years after System 6 was released, so why are you surprised?
As another reader said, if you locate an SSH client for System 6, I would like to hear about it.
But the leap from
System 6 to 7.1 isn't as large as the one from 7.1 to OS X, so I bear with
it. But things get quite ugly (IMHO) by the time you hit 7.1 Pro/7.5 and
are barely barable by Mac OS 9.2.2. As for NeXT OS X, I literally use it
for two programs: Safari and Preview. I need it to be "interoperable" with
the outside world.
It is extremely interoperable with the outside world. I use a PowerBook running 10.3.5 for my daily work, which is web development. I live in a Windows world, yet I never, ever, have problems networking my machine with anything.
Virtually all of my other software is System 6/7 era, so there is literally no reason to have this fancy hardware except planned obsolescence.
There are other reasons, and you have already mentioned one of them - video editing.
Byron, if there is a market for these things, then you should definitely plug these holes that you see. What's stopping you?
Eagle
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