At 10:55 AM -0700 2/25/2003, Andrew Kershaw wrote: > >The USB to serial adapters are just that. Serial only. They don't >>pass appletalk packets and never will. > >Ok, just to pick nits, it's not the serial-USB adapter that doesn't >pass AppleTalk packets, it's that the packets never get to the >adapter! The adapter shouldn't care whether the data passing through >it is formatted one way or another, so long as it's serial data. > >The software these things use emulates a serial port on USB, fooling >other software into thinking that there is a real legacy serial port >on the bus. Except that AppleTalk is too smart for that.
It's because the serial controller chip on a Mac does more than just pass bytes, it handles the address and data stream encoding and decoding. LocalTalk processing on the Mac is CPU intensive. Once a packet transfer begins the CPU is dedicated to processing bytes to/from the serial port. This would be rather messy to do over USB. The main reason of course not to do LocalTalk over USB is that any native USB equipped Mac has Ethernet so an Ethernet to LocalTalk converter is much simpler (especially since they existed long before this became an issue). > > >AFAIK, it doesn't just sorta bundle TCP/IP into AppleTalk (whatever >LocalTalk, EtherTalk, IRTalk, etc) packets, it actually DOES >encapsulate IP packets into AppleTalk traffic. MacIP must run over >an active AppleTalk network - MacIP is not independent of AppleTalk. >Where AppleTalk doesn't go, MacIP doesn't go. (Although, AppleTalk >can go places MacIP can't - like the serial ports under Mac OS 9. >MacIP is unsupported over LocalTalk on Mac OS 9.x. - annoying if you >are using IPNetRouter on a newer Mac to connect many older Macs; >grrr, my phonenet is AppleTalk only!) Huh! I've used MacIP over LocalTalk on my PowerBooks w/ OS 9.1 plenty of times. Both with IPNetRouter and with a FastPath. -- Clark Martin Redwood City, CA, USA Macintosh / Internet Consulting "I'm a designated driver on the Information Super Highway" -- PowerBooks is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Enter To Win A | -- Canon PowerShot Digital Cameras start at $299 | Free iBook! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PowerBooks list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/powerbooks.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/powerbooks%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
