Creating a Home Network

Last week I looked at the fact that many households now have more than one computer. How do you make these computers communicate with each other? How do you set up a central file server? How do you get all of the machines to share an Internet connection?

You might have three or four Macs in your house, and you want to connect them all. The first thing you have to make sure of is that they all have ethernet. Without ethernet, you can't copy files or run applications off other computers on your network without using LocalTalk, which is much slower and only appears on pre-1998 Macs.

All Macs made today come with ethernet, and older Macs (such as the 6400, 6300, and 5200) sometimes don't. You can easily add ethernet to these Macs. A PCI ethernet card is easy to find (make sure it's Mac compatible) and install in an older Mac. Macs such as the 6300 and 5200 need an PDS or Comm Slot ethernet card, since they have no PCI slot. Even older Macs may use NuBus or PDS ethernet cards.

To set up a network you need an ethernet hub. These are easy to find, and a small 4 port hub shouldn't be too expensive. (Suggestion: Buy hub with a few extra ports for future expansion.) Then you will need to buy ethernet cables to connect each computer to the hub. Make sure you get patch cables, not crossover cables (crossover cables are used for connecting two computers without a hub). Ethernet cables can run several hundred feet if necessary.

Simply connect the cables to your computers and the hub, and then turn on the hub.

You may be asking what the point is - that's a good question. Without a file server there is little point to setting up a network. An older Mac is excellent for use as a file server - even an old IIci or Quadra 610 will work fine for this purpose. Simply install an ethernet card, if the machine does not have it (you may need to buy the older NuBus type of ethernet card), and connect it to the hub.

You want to be running System 7.1 or higher with Open Transport on your server. To create a file server:

1. Set up server with System installed, ethernet configured.
2. Open the File Sharing control panel.
3. Set the owner name and password.
4. Enable file sharing.

If you log in using this name and password, you will have full access to every part of every drive on the server. Now you can copy some files that you want to share to the server's hard drive. In the AppleTalk control panel, make sure that AppleTalk is set to Ethernet or Ethernet Built-in (whichever applies to the server).

Now go to another Mac on the network and log onto your new file server using the name and password that you supplied in the Sharing Setup box of the file server. If you choose, you can allow other users or guests to access the shared drive under "File: Sharing" in the Finder when your disk is selected. You can create new users in the Users or Users and Groups control panel.

Setting up a file server allows other machines on your network to use the files and applications stored on your server. You can even store applications such as Office 2001 on an old IIsi so that a Power Mac 7600 can run it from the server. Keep in mind that the speed won't be as good over the network as if you ran it off of your internal hard drive.

Another thing that is becoming increasingly popular are cable modems and DSL Internet connections. More and more people have them, and with dropping prices, more and more people are getting them.

How do you connect more than one computer to your cable modem or DSL line? Simple. Get a cable modem/DSL router. This will allow the connection to be used by two or more computers (Mac or PC). I use a Linksys Etherfast Cable/DSL router model BEFSR41, and I highly recommend that brand to anyone looking for a good router.

Setup couldn't be much easier. Simply connect your computers to the router with patch cables, connect your cable modem to the port provided for it, plug in the router, reset it, turn on your computers, and you will most likely have no further work to do to get on the Internet. Some modems require special settings, so you may need to refer to your manual for both the cable modem and the router.

On my network at home I currently have my PC, my G4 tower, a 500 MHz iMac, and a 200 MHz 604e upgraded 7500. All can take advantage of the speed of the cable modem, and I have never seen performance affected on one machine by another machine connected to the router (for example, if one computer is downloading a large file, the others seem not to slow down on the Internet).

Simply connect an ethernet equipped printer (or a standard one with an adapter) to either of these networks, and, with the installation of the correct software on each machine, you will be able to print from all machines on the network.

Today, home computing is a lot more complex than it was five years - or even two or three years ago. Creating a home network offers a way to make it even more complicated. However, it also greatly simplifies the ever perplexing problem of how to transfer files, print documents to a single printer, and install/set up applications on all of your machines.

A home network offers a way to combine the different resources each of your machines has to offer, whether Mac or PC, to make a computing experience that works correctly when you want it to.