🚀 go-pugleaf

Hiya folks!

I am currently in charge of running a network of Macs at the office of my 
school newspaper, the College of Lake County Chronicle.  I've been online 
for about two years now, but I've never really had to deal with anything 
besides LocalTalk.

But know, we're trying to put together a presentation to ask for funding 
to upgrade our network from LocalTalk to Ethernet.  I've bought some 
books, but I'd also like to solicit others' opinions as well!  *grin*

Here's what we've got currently set up:

via LocalTalk:
1 Mac Plus
1 Mac SE
1 Mac SE/30
1 Mac IIsi
1 Mac LC575
1 Mac LCIII
1 LaserWriter IINTX
1 "big" laser printer (don't have the name right now)

not yet included in the network (but soon to be)
1 Power Mac 6100
1 Performa 6116
1 LaserWriter Select 360

As I said before, we're going to be upgrading the current LocalTalk 
network to Ethernet, if it's economically feasible that is.  But as you 
can see, we have a wide variety of newer and older Macs.  Some have 
Ethernet built-in, some do not.

What can people recommend for options as far as equipment goes?  I was 
thinking of basically daisy chaining everything together (cheaper than 
buying a hub) using Farallon EtherWave connectors.  However, there is the 
problem that not all the Macs have Ethernet ports behind them.  But they 
*do* all have SCSI ports.  Is there some way to utilize the SCSI port to 
be able to hook them up to the Ethernet network?

Realistically, if we had more options and resources, I'd say just forget 
about hooking up the old Plus and SE's, but my instructor is insisting 
that they be included.  And yet, we don't have the money to buy Ethernet 
cards and hubs.  So that's why we're daisy-chaining.

Someone told me the other day that there are Ethernet connectors now that 
you can plug into the printer port, similar to what you did with a 
LocalTalk networking scheme.  Is this true?

And yet, to make matters worse, one of the Macs has to be able to connect 
to our school's already-in-place TokenRing network that has the 
connection to the Internet.

Fun, isn't it?  :)

Any assistance that anyone can render would be greatly appreciated.  In 
addition, if there are sites on the Web that have rundowns on how to go 
about installing an Ethernet network, please let me know.  I have already 
checked out the Web66 site, but that's pretty much just for hooking 
schools up to the Net.

Thank you in advance for anything anyone can tell me.

Please reply via e-mail.
Michael