>I have a little ethernet network at home, using an ethernet hub to
>connect an iMac to a G3 and to share the cable modem. (I use IPNetRouter
>to do this)
>
>I am just using the Appleshare file sharing program in the Chooser to
>share files, but do have all the computers connected through TCP/IP. Is
>this what you are talking about, or is Appleshare IP another program I
>should install?
Just as Appletalk and TCP/IP are network protocol "stacks" that sit atop a
physical media layer such as Ethernet or Localtalk, Appleshare is a
file-sharing protocol that can operate over either. When you turn on File
Sharing on a Powerbook, you're serving Appleshare over Appletalk (over
Ethernet/IRDA/ Localtalk). There's also a more featured and intentionally
better-performing server software suite (somewhat confusingly also called
"AppleShare") that's sold by Apple; if you had a server running that on
your network (on which you're running TCP/IP), you could connect a client
Mac to it via TCP/IP using the normal Chooser or Network Browser method, as
well as by Appletalk - the Appleshare software uses an IP connection if
it's available, otherwise falling back to Appletalk if not. The free
Netatalk software suite for Unix systems also supports Appleshare IP (and
I've seen some very good transfer rates with it on a fast network). TCP/IP
is faster than Appletalk for streaming large amounts of data on an
ethernet, mainly because it can use larger packets, which translates to
less overhead (there are other reasons, but that's the main one). In other
respects the protocols are actually very similar in design and
implementation; they just had differing design priorities, and each do
different things well.
With OS 9 or the commercial Shareway IP software it is possible to serve
Appleshare IP from your Mac's regular Personal File Sharing, but there'd be
little point on a non-routed LAN because that implementation is rather poor
in terms of performance (a real solution would work without involving
Appletalk at all - Unix Netatalk can be run this way, for instance). It is
still useful if you want to connect to a Mac over the Internet or some
other network where Appletalk can't be used, since there are millions of IP
routers out there linking the world together and virtually no Appletalk
routers for any appreciable distance.
You can consider Appleshare to be a peer to other data-access protocols
like FTP or HTTP, though it's a bit more complex, and really a bundle of
protocols to provide browsing, authentication and file transfer services
with lots of network traffic dedicated to keeping your picture of the
remote side "live". As a side note, virtually all network communication
schemes (like most aspects of computer hardware and software operation) are
layered in this fashion - and the more distinctly they are, the better for
stability and continued development.
--
Marc Sira | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"If you can't play with words, what good are they?"
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