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:
- Set up server with System installed, ethernet configured.
- Open the File Sharing control panel.
- Set the owner name and password.
- 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.
