68kMLA Classic Interface

• FULL NAT on the MacIP connection. You can now surf the Internet without any router configuration
  
• Newest version of the Web Rendering Proxy on port 8080.
  http://macippi.local:8080/ or http://gw.macip.net:8080
  Just visit the MacIPRpi with your old browser and see internet pages as images.
  

• Full file sharing.
  
  – Old school Macintosh 512k, Plus, SE, etc. And System 7,8,9 Macs
  – MacOS X
  – Windows
  – Linux
  
  Even anonymous FTP is supported.
  You will allways land in the same map and can share files between different computers.
  

Here are some beta test notes so far. . .

I setup the image on a 16gb SD card running on a Pi 3b+.

It goes through the booting process with everything loading and scrolling by and ends by stopping at last line:

[OK] Started Raised Network Interfaces

There is no login prompt, no CLI—which maybe I should assume is normal/expected since these will probably be headless gateway systems. No need for a display at all—you can SSH in—is that the idea?

SO, I don’t have my localtalk wired up yet as I am awaiting hardware delivery, but I did SSH into it as macipgw user. Tried to expand the partition using:

sudo /usr/bin/raspi-config —expand-rootfs

but this fails. In fact, I cannot run raspi-config because I am not in the sudoers list. Can’t edit /etc/sudoers either. . . so, I logged out and back in as pi (same password) and I was able to run raspi-config.

Maybe I missed it but logging in as pi to expand the partition is worth updating in the docs, or add macipgw to the sudoers.

I know the cool part is seeing this from a vintage mac through the local talk bridge, but from a more recent mac Mini running High Sierra, I see 

three versions of the file share:

MACIPPI

which has a mountable ‘MacIPpi-Samba’ folder,

macippi MACOS

which has a mountable ‘MacIPpi DISK’ folder,

and

macippi WINDOWS which has a mountable ‘MacIPpi-Samba’ folder

I was able to mount all three and place a file into the SHARED_DISK folder which is showing over 11 GB available. Of course, this file is visible in all three mounted shares.

I assume the different “servers” that are showing up on my network are simply a result of my modern machine’s ability to see all three running the various protocols. The common mapping is as much as anyone needing to transfer files around would need. Nicely done!

I might try setting up a VM either on another Pi or on my mac running MacOS 7 if I can make it work to see if a virtual mac can see this in lieu of my SE/30 which has no connectivity as of yet.

Also, I tested the Web Rendering Proxy, albeit from a modern system. It works a treat! Performance is what it is, but that is a nice addition.

This is a very capable little network solution. I wonder if it can run alongside CUPS with Airprint? I have that running on another Pi (also running PiHole on that one). Do we know if a CUPS printer setup is visible to the old macs this way?

Apologies if this is a really stupid question but what is the physical interface between my Classic Macs on their LocalTalk network and the Ethernet network? As the pi doesn't have serial port. 

• Dedicated hardware.  There are LocalTalk to Ethernet bridges.  The one I have was made by Asanté; others exist.  These turn up on the second-hand market reasonably frequently but are in some demand.  There are also more flexible devices like the GatorBox, which are really AppleTalk routers.  These are rather harder to find, mostly because there were fewer of them around to start with.
   
  
• Use another old Mac with a serial port and an Ethernet card.  This is what I do and what I recommend.  It does not need much grunt.  I use an LC II logic board and an LC Ethernet card in a generic plastic case with a hacked-together power supply.  Both LC-class machines (and spares for them) and LC ethernet cards are much more easily available than bridges, and easier to service if they go awry.  I'm happy to provide more information on how I do this if it would be useful 🙂 .
  

Great though this project is, what would be even more useful is a modern gizmo that replaces the Asante. It can't be that hard, presumably the Apple serial port is a standard part.

Just out of interest while we're talking about it, let's say I put an Ethernet card in my Colour Classic, what software would I need to bridge the 2 network interfaces? 

It wouldn't be that hard, just quite a lot of faff.  The problem is that the Mac serial interface is significantly more flexible than the standard PC serial port, and LocalTalk uses that flexibility.  In fact, an awful lot of LocalTalk is done inside the serial controller chip that the Mac uses.  Members of that family of chips are still available, so in theory it could be done.  There are technotes out there from Zilog about how to implement it, and the algorithms for how to implement the link-layer protocol are documented in Inside AppleTalk.  So, again, it's not particularly hard, it would more just require time and attention to detail.  I'm intending to play with this at some point, but as for when...

Read about it here:

The Pi 4 has a bunch of UARTs available on the header though.