I have an older Imac that I had bought about 4 or 5 years ago…before I had fully accepted that i wasn’t actually buying the computer to do work at home, but to play games on. I now also have a Compaq Presario.
What I would like to do is connect my Imac and PC together so that I may play Starcraft (or some other cross over game) through a local network. Is there any easy way to do this, or am I going to have to go buy software to enable it (I know I’ve seen software that helps…but is it necessary?)
Both computers have ethernet cards. I do have access to a 10baseT hub if I want it (a cast off from the office) and all the ethernet cables and crossover cables I could desire.
Go for the hub and the cables, and do your network the “right” way.
StarCraft for the Mac and the PC both support TCP/IP networking, so no problem there, and no special software needed.
I’m assuming you have two separate serial numbers, one for the Mac, and one for the PC? If so, you can get them both on Battlenet at the same time, too! Well, assuming you have the means to connect both of them to the internet at the same time.
Once you want to start file sharing, you can set up ftp or http servers on one or both computers, and transfer files that way. Although, it’s really a LOT easier to buy PC MacLan for the PC (enabled AppleTalk on the PC) or Dave for the Mac (enables Windows networking on the Mac). Or, you cut put OS X on the Mac, and have built-in Windows networking (no browser, yet, though).
I realize that last information goes beyond the scope of your question, but they’re good things to get a jump on if you’re going to go through the trouble of networking them in the first place.
Well, the easiest way, IMHO, is to use PC MACLAN. The harder way would be to do it without software. Now, I’ll be honest, I know next to nothing when it comes to Macs, but I think in order to network them without software, you would have to install TCP/IP on the Mac (which can be done nativlely).
I’m sure a Mac person will come along and rightfully correct me, but, if you can get your hands on PC MACLAN, I would recommend you go with that. That’s just my opinion, of course. Yours may differ.
Depends which question you’re answering, Vandal!
For playing Starcarft and most network games, TCP/IP is the only thing required. And TCP/IP is built-in on all Macs since System 7.7.3 (?) or so (whenever OpenTransport was introduced).
For networking in general AppleTalk is “nicer” if you have a Mac-only network, since pure TCP/IP doesn’t allow browsing (that’s a SMB [Windows] feature). However, Mac OS X.1 has SMB support, which will probably supplant most of AppleTalk in the future in the name of “compatibility.” (we poor Mac users are now required to use filename extensions! Talk about a step backward!)
So it all comes back to this:
Game Playing: no software needed if both support TCP/IP
File Sharing via FTP/HTTP: FTP/HTTP software needed on one or both computers.
File Sharing (normal way): Dave on the Mac, or PC MacLan on the PC. Maybe both, since I’m sure neither is a host–only client.
File Sharing (OS X): nothing more needed, although there’s no SMB browser on the Mac yet, making it a pain. The free single-user version of Sharity works under OS X, though).
Earlier than that! (Actually there was no 7.7.3; the last version of System 7 was 7.6). TCP/IP was natively installed before the Open Transport days via a Control Panel called MacTCP. I believe you could download it and install it under System 6, but it only came with the box under System 7 (7.1? I’m not sure which exact version). Definitely came with my 7100 when I bought it, which was 7.5, and I’m pretty sure my Mom’s IIci had it under 7.1 come to think of it.
Meanwhile, leaving this little hijack – Vandal is correct that MacLan is by far the easiest to set up. It is a PC program that puts an AppleTalk stack on the PC, allowing you to browse Mac shared under Network Neighborhood, and the Mac sees the PC’s shares under the Chooser. All you need to do is give the PC a name, set up your shares, and you’re on the network. (AppleTalk is simple stuff).
Another option, as Balthisar mentions, is DAVE for the Macintosh, which puts a NetBIOS stack on the Macintosh. NetBIOS (also known as SMB or “Microsoft Networking”) must run over TCP/IP, but you’d be setting that up anyway to run the networked game. DAVE is more complicated to set up than MacLan, but not dauntingly so: You need to set up a Workgroup and make both boxes belong to it, and create a PC-style machine description for the Mac. If you were on a large corporate netowork (like I am at work) you’d need to know the primary and secondary (if existent) WINS addresses, or else use DHCP to obtain them, depending on how your network is set up, and you use a logon program to achieve domain logon if your large corporate environment uses domain logon to establish network privileges rather than share-level privs. Once your network is set up, the Chooser has a new icon that works the same way as the AppleShare icon, except that it browses PC NetBIOS shares. From the PC, meanwhile, the Mac looks like any other citizen in Network Neighborhood.
There is a DAVE for MacOS X as well, and it works quite well (way better than the built-in Apple SMB for X).
PC MacLAN does allow the PC to act as an AppleShare server as well as a client. Otherwise, the information the other posters have presented is pretty much on the money.
Thursby Software Systems also has an AppleTalk client for Windows, called TSSTalk. It’s usually about $50 cheaper than PC MacLAN, and doesn’t include a server component. When I was VP of product management of the company (CoOperative Printing Solutions, aka COPS) that originally developed TSSTalk (then called COPSTalk), it was also a more reliable product for most users and offered more robust printing support for Win9x than PC MacLAN ;-), but I haven’t used either one regularly in about three years now; the folks at Thursby seem to have done good things with TSSTalk since acquiring it, though. I’m obviously biased, but I like DAVE, and have continued to use it off and on over the last few years. Thursby also offers a more limited (no printing support) SMB client/server package for the Mac called MacSOHO that’s only $49 through the end of the year, so if you just want to give the Mac access to shared files on the PC, that would be worth checking out as well. Thursby offers downloadable demo versions of all their products, as does Miramar Systems.
Speaking as someone who was deeply involved in the development and support of Mac/PC cross-platform networking products for eight years, my one piece of general advice is to avoid using the native cross-platform components from either Apple or Microsoft for anything you need to rely on. Apple’s SMB support is rudimentary and not particularly well-implmented, and Microsoft’s Services for Macintosh in NT is just bad, and Win2K is only marginally better; except for adding support for AFP-over-IP in Win2K, MS fixed only the most egregious SFM bugs between NT 3.51 and Win2K, and made almost no other changes. For both Apple and Microsoft, support for the native networking protocols on the other platform was merely a checklist item; they did just enough to be able to assure their corporate customers that they offered cross-platform networking support, and put only the minimum effort into maintaining and enhancing those components. Both Miramar Systems and Thursby are focused almost exclusively on developing these types of products.
Thanks for everyone’s input. The only reason I want to connect them together is to play games. The computers are used for pretty much two separate things right now and if I need to transfer files…well thats what USB zip drives are all about.
However, I do have an interest in all this technical stuff, so I am going to print this out and see if I can’t get my poor graphic-designer-type brain around some of the other concepts/options.
I agree for the most part, especially when talking about office networks. For home networks, where occasional restarts may be necessary, the built-in stuff can be good enough.
I used PCMacLan for the PC back in the days where my Quadra 636 had LocalTalk networking any my Acer Notebook had a MiramarSys-provided Parallel-Port-to-LocalTalk adapter. It worked perfectly, but I paid good money for it, and it was the only solution I was able to find.
Now, I haven’t actually tried reinstalling the old version of PCMacLan under Me (I suspect it wouldn’t work), not would I pay the upgrade price just to get it to play nicely with my Mac, when “free” alternatives are good enough. I’ve also tried the trial Dave under Mac OS 9, and it worked okay, but again, not worth the money.
For me, I consider VirtualPC a “free” alternative, since I use VirtualPC for other stuff.
I used Sharity on OS X before it had SMB support. It was GREAT, but didn’t offer a server service (again, at home, no big deal – do everything from the Mac).
The Mac OS X SMB client works well (does it have SMB server? Haven’t tried it, but again, home network, no big deal), once you have the connection up. But, there’s no browser, so that’s a problem. You can create aliases to the remote share, but overall, it’s a pain in the butt. BUT, not such a pain in the butt that I’ll spend serious money on Dave.
Hmmm… maybe for fun I’ll try to port a *nix distribution of SMB for OS X, and see if I can’t write a GUI for it (I’d like to program my cherished Macs!).
Oh, really, I’m NOT trying to debate! Only pointing out that free alternatives are an option, and even saying bad things about them.
Oooh, oooh, one more: does the “home” version of XP have AFP support? Anyone?
Agreed. That’s why I said “for anything you need to rely on”. If it’s just a nice-to-have, the built-in stuff typically works OK, and you can’t beat the price.
Yeah, that was the little box that Apexx built and never had much luck selling on their own. I still have one around here somewhere. And it was about your only option for LocalTalk on a laptop.
Actually, that’s not strictly true. Coactive Networks had a little parallel port adapter as well, but it ran a slightly amped up version of LocalTalk (ala the old TOPS FlashCard).
You have a strange definition of “fun”, but it’s probably much easier to do this for OS X than it ever would have been under earlier Mac OS versions.