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Macintosh Serial Throughput: Results

Your results may vary, but this should provide a good starting point for tweaking serial throughput on your setup. Note that FreePPP allows serial port settings of 115.2kbps and 230.4kbps, settings not possible with Apple's serial toolbox routines. If you have different results, I'd very much like to publish them here.

For best possible throughput, don't use your floppy drive, run CPU-intensive programs, or transfer data over LocalTalk, and minimize use of the hard drive.

In email Dan Knight reporting your results, please indicate your computer model, accelerator (if present), system version, PPP software used, networking (classic or Open Transport), modem used, reported connection speed from ISP, DTE rate (serial port speed), maximum reported throughput, and level of packet loss (none, low, high).

68000-based Macs

Plus (8 MHz), reported by Rowland

• 28.8kbps, some packet loss, best overall throughput
• 19.2kbps, no packet loss, slightly lower throughput
• packet loss at 57.6 kbps made throughput slower than at 9600bps

Plus (8 MHz, System 7.5.3), reported by Mike Friese

• packet loss due to overruns, CRC errors beyond 19.2kbps

68020-based Macs

68030-based Macs

IIci (25 MHz), reported by Dirk von Seggern

• 115.2kbps with few dropped packets using V.34+ modem
• 64kbps throughput with ISDN at 115.2kbps

LC III (25 MHz)

• 115.2kbps, unknown packet loss

Perfoma 460 (33 MHz), reported by Daryl Mitchell

• 115.2kbps "works great" with 33.6 v.42bis modem

68040-based Macs

Centris 610 (20 MHz), System 7.5.5, FreePPP, OT 1.1.2, Supra 56e modem, reported by Dan Knight

• 230.4kbps, one dropped packet, 88.4kbps throughput on statistics page for my ISP
• 115.2kbps, no dropped packets, 83.2kbps throughput
• 57.6 kbps, no dropped packets, 48.7kbps

Performa 475 (25 MHz), System 7.1 and 7.6, reported by Rowland

• 115.2kbps

Centris 660av (25 MHz), System 7.5.5, FreePPP, OT 1.1.2, Supra 56e modem, 42-44kbps connection, reported by Dan Knight

• 230.4kbps, few dropped packets, 88.5kbps throughput on statistics page for my ISP
• 115.2kbps, no packet loss, 81.6kbps throughput
• 57.6 kbps, no packet loss, 52.7kbps throughput

Quadra 650 (33 MHz), System 8.0, reported by Jonathan Ploudre

• 230.4kbps, few dropped packets, 90kbps maximum throughput
• 115.2kbps, no packet loss, 90kbps maximum throughput
• 57.6 kbps, no packet loss, 49kbps maximum throughput
• Gained 10-15% on sustained throughput by moving from 57.6 kbps to 115.2kbps.

Other Resources

• Modem performance using FreePPP and OT PPP on at 5320, Adrian Winnard

Recent Online Tech Journal Columns

• Apple's AAUI ethernet connector, 09.04. From 1991 through 1995, Apple used a proprietary ethernet connection. Why they created AAUI and where to find adapters.
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• The PowerPC G4: From 350 MHz to 2.0 GHz, 05.24. AltiVec and dual processor support made the G4 a big improvement over the earlier G3 processor.
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