🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <daniel-260193102440@129.236.30.215>  
daniel@lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu (Dan Quoidbach) writes:
> We have a mix of Mac's, 286/dos5, and 486/dos5/win3.1 machines on an
> appletalk network. The 286s and one 486 use Farallon's PhoneNet Card, while
> one 486 uses a Dayna DL2000 card to connect to the network. All PCs are
> running Farallon's PhoneNet Talk 2.04, but the upgrades to 3.0 have been
> ordered for the windows machines. I hear nice things about OS/2, and am
> getting tired of the problems we keep having with windows, but have been
> told that, if we run OS/2 on our 486s, we can't use our existing PhoneNet
> cards or software. Is this true, or can we just set up our 486s with OS/2
> and live happily ever after? We can't change our network, we'de rather not
> buy new cards and software for the 486s, so are we stuck using windows?
> Thanks for the help.

I'd take this in stages. First, try to upgrade your Appletalk/Localtalk  
network to Appletalk/twisted-pair (10Base-T) ethernet. (If the cabling is  
inside walls, I'm pretty sure you can use the same cabling, but, of course,  
it needs to run in a star configuration to a 10-Base-T concentrator.) This  
will require new cards in your Intel-based machines and a 10-Base-T  
concentrator, but not much else.

Then you'll have a lot more flexibility both in what you add to the network  
and how you configure it. Lanserver 3.0 running on OS/2, for example,  
supports Appletalk and Mac clients (with an optional package), and, in  
addition to the usual file-sharing stuff, will allow Macs to print on  
PC-connected printers and vice-versa. TCP/IP is another option, since you can  
easily run the stack on both the Macs and the OS/2 PCs.

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