PC and MAC LANs
Don Healey (dh100@131.111.36.9)
Wed, 17 May 95 11:02:11 +0100
3. mixed Mac/PC LAN
>Planning the physical wiring of a LAN is pretty easy: 10Base-T or 10Base-2.
>Planning the Network Operating System (NOS) is not so easy (unless you or
>your organization has already dumped a lot of money into one already).
>Since you're already on the internet, you could just use ftp, if all you
>are interested in is file exchange. If you want to share printers, you'll
>probably need a NOS (I haven't found a good lpr/lpd solution for print
>sharing yet). If you don't have any VMS or Unix machines to complicate the
>matter, I'd say your choices are AppleShare, NetWare, and Windows NT AS
>(Advanced Server), but there are others. Since Apple includes network
>client software with their system software, you are spared the per-computer
>license fee of the PC NOSs. In fact, you can set up a peer-to-peer (similar
>to NetWare Lite) network of Macintoshes without buying any additional
>software. Apple sells a PC version of its network client software; however,
>it appears that the PC client is included with AppleShare server software
>for an unlimited number of PCs (unverified). You may not need a server, but
>it should at least make printer sharing more sane. And printer sharing is
>the only problem for AppleShare: not every printer can be served from an
>AppleShare server. I expect Apple printers to work well, but you may want
>to verify the compatibility of other printers. Other problems
>with incorporating Macs into a PC NOS is that you must buy additional
>server software (usually in addition to the Mac client license), and
>setting up that software usually drives network administrators insane. :)
>
I use PCs and MACS in the lab for numerous things and found the easiest
network is to stick to TCP/IP. This enables FTP transfers between MACs and
PCs in either direction. As far as printing is concerned, we bought an
Apple Laserwriter 16/600PS which sits directly on the network. This printer
accepts Appletalk from the MACs and TCP/IP calls from the PCs. My entire PC
platform is shareware built around the Trumpet Winsock. Printing is
achieved by the use of a windows LPR spooler (shareware derived from
wlprs40c.zip). Thus Appletalk/share is part of the MAC-OS and all the
necessary PC TCP/IP stuff is widely available over the internet. You just
need to buy a cheap ethernet card and find a suitable packet driver and off
you go! As a network novice, this system is a lot easier to work with than
a complex Novell NOS running a dedicated server and complex remote print queues!
Good luck!
Don
Snail to:
Dr Don Healey BSc. PhD.
BDA Research Fellow
Dept. of Pathology
Cambridge University
Tennis Court Road
Cambridge CB 1QP
TEL: 0223 333716
FAX: 0223 333914
CD ROM Vol 2 was produced by staff at the Purdue University Cytometry Laboratories
and distributed free of charge as an educational service to the cytometry community.
If you have any comments please direct them to Dr. J. Paul Robinson, Professor & Director, PUCL,
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907. Phone:(317) 494-0757; FAX (317) 494-0517; Web http://www.cyto.purdue.edu
EMAIL robinson@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu
