Once again sun-managers proves to be indispensable!
Recently, I posted the following inquiry:
>> We have a net of Suns and a small AppleTalk net of Macs. What would be
>> the cheapest way to connect the two nets?
I have received many responses, which I'm trying to summarize below. Thanks
to all who responded. And please, no more (:-)
The choices, ordered by decreasing popularity, are:
1) Use an Apple- (or Mac-) based network and making use of a gateway
box to Ethernet.
2) Connect the Macs directly to the Ethernet, then install software on the
Macs to handle the communication,
3) Connect a Sun to the Apple net by an S-Bus AppleTalk card,
4) Use a serial communications program (like Kermit).
The break-even point between solutions 1 and 2 is when the price of one
Ethernet Mac card, multiplied by the number of Macs is equal to the price of
the gateway box. Currently, it stands around 10 (an Ethernet card can be had
for around $200, while the boxes cost around $2000).
Our particular setup is <5 Macs, so we're opting for the Mac Ethernet cards
with Telnet software on those Macs.
- The gateway boxes most popular are:
o GatorBox (from Cayman Systems)
o FastPath (from Kinetics Inc. or from Shiva)
- The software choices are:
MacTCP (from Apple)
NCSA Telnet for Macintosh (Public domain).
MAC/NFS (from Wollongong)
TOPS (from Sun)
The majority of people have voted for the GatorBox solution with or without
some optional software running on the Macs.
In order not to swamp the net, I'm not enclosing a more detailed summary.
If anybody needs more information, just drop me a line and I'll forward
the responses I got.
A special thank-you goes to Loki Jorgenson, who forwarded a very long
summary gleaned from the now-defunct Mac-Sun mailing list.
My thanks go to these people:
Loki Jorgenson loki@Physics.McGill.CA
Simon Shickman simon@horizon.huji.ac.il
Hans-J. Nagel nagel@lindau.inf-wiss.ivp.uni-konstanz.de
Jacques Beigbeder beig@ens.fr
Dave Grootwassink grootwass@tawc1.eglin.af.mil
Jeff Martin jeff@auratek.com
John Noerenberg jwn2@qualcomm.com
Phil Green pgreen@zia.AOC.NRAO.EDU
Keith Stone keith@odi.com
Danielle Sanine danielle@systems.caltech.edu
Russ Button button@alc.com
Mark Mann mann@emma.la.asu.edu
David Mostardi david@msri.org
John D'Amour clarify!johnd@uu.psi.com
Geert Jan de Groot geertj@ica.philips.nl
Stuart Freedman stuart@ileaf.com
Kevin Sheehan kevin@fourx.Aus.Sun.COM
Martin_A._Leisner Martin_A._Leisner.Henr801C@xerox.com
Dwight A. Ernest dae@world.std.com
Steve Puchkoff steve_puchkoff@tobago.Cayman.COM
-- /* Amir J. Katz | UUCP: uunet!ingr!matis!amir */ /* System Specialist | Internet: amir%matis.UUCP@ingr.COM */ /* SEE Technologies Ltd. | Voice: +972 52-584684, Fax: +972 52-543917 */
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