Getting a Macintosh SE Online

[rjkucia]

Hi all, I'm buying a Macintosh SE, and I'd like to try getting it connected to the internet. There's a lot of guides out there for how to do that, however I'm a little unclear on the best way to actually get it phyiscally hooked up.

It sounds like PDS cards with ethernet exist, but since they're CPU-specific they don't seem very common for the SE (a lot more for the LC or SE/30). I'm seeing some adapters for SCSI or Mini-DIN-8 to ethernet, but do I need to be looking for something specific? Ali Baba has what appears to be a $1 Mini-DIN-8-to-twisted pair cable, am I overthinking it and is that all I'd need? Or would that more likely blow up my nice new Mac? Sorry in advance if I'm going about this the wrong way!

 

[eric]

The SE cards are much rarer to come by and are different as you mentioned.

The two modern recommendations I'd go with is a RaSCSI - it can emulate a DaynaPORT SCSI ethernet adapter (among a lot of other things). Or one of the WIFI Modems from the old net.

I'd also consider what you'd want to do online with an SE - it's pretty limited with 4mb of ram - some text web browsing via a proxy, BBSing to cqbbs, AFP file share, and FTP are main things I do.

 

[rjkucia]

Thanks! I think I was probably too focused on getting a physical ethernet port, whereas these emulated solutions seem to do the job much more easily.

Haha, I definitely don't think I'm going to do a whole lot - just a project to see what it can do!

 

[rjkucia]

After looking around at things more, I had a few more questions. RaSCSI seems like it would be a great solution, unfortunately I can't seem to find a Raspberry Pi anywhere online for a reasonable price. I'm guessing they were hit by the chip shortage.

The Old Net's wifi modem seems like a great solution, but I was wondering if there was a cheaper solution without WiFi (which I don't really need for this project)? It's certainly not expensive in the grand scheme of things, but if there's a cheaper ethernet adapter I'd just go for that instead.

Finally, I'm still a little stuck around what sorts of software/bridges/etc. I actually need to connect to TCP/IP. Could someone give me a quick rundown on which System version/connection/bridge/etc I'd need for an SE?

Edit - Never mind the hardware part, I just went and ordered The Old Net's modem since having WiFi certainly won't hurt, haha

 

[TheJ]

@rjkucia If you have been looking for a RPi 4 your going to have problems finding one.
Try looking for a RPi 3b instead. Much easier to find and work great with the RaSCSI.

 

[davewongillies]

RaSCSIs also work with Pi Zero W and Zero 2 W, which can be found more easily than Pi 4s

 

[pfuentes69]

I use an old RPi 3B V1.2 (not even the 3B+) and it does the job nicely.

I use it internally in the SE/30 using the @PotatoFi bracket and it's a great way to add an ethernet port to the Mac, while also having all the rest of features of the RASCSI.

 

[rjkucia]

RaSCSIs also work with Pi Zero W and Zero 2 W, which can be found more easily than Pi 4s

I've had trouble finding those everywhere except in-store at MicroCenter (and unfortunately there isn't one near me) and resold at high prices. Plus the RaSCSI is more expensive in the Zero configuration. Maybe I'll pick one up in the future, but for now I'm just going to mess around with a BlueSCSI and Wifi Modem. Thanks though!

 

[pfuentes69]

The Wifi Modem is cool to use BBS. I made myself one and I could get TCP/IP using PPP, but for that I had to use a Raspberry to run SLIRP, so you'd have to look for some alternative. I guess you can do telnet to a Linux machine in the Wifi network.
But even so, in my case it was terribly slow, as I could only make it work at 9600 bps, and pretty unstable. So it was a fun exercise, but I didn't manage to get it working good enough to be really useful to do HTTP or similar.

 

[rjkucia]

It supports ethernet emulation now, which I imagine would be a lot faster? Serial is still slower than SCSI of course, so I guess we'll see!

 

[pfuentes69]

It supports ethernet emulation now, which I imagine would be a lot faster? Serial is still slower than SCSI of course, so I guess we'll see!

Yikes! I missed that update! I'll play with it again then.

 

[rjkucia]

It's only been within the past week or so! So you're not too far behind, lol

 

[pfuentes69]

It's only been within the past week or so! So you're not too far behind, lol

Where's the doc? I checked in GitHub and I can't see mention to this feature.
Txs

 

[rjkucia]

This video explains it and has links to the new firmware:

 

[pfuentes69]

OK, Thanks! I was checking his other GitHub account.

Maybe I'm missing something, but all this is about getting online a PC with DOS... I can't figure out how this applies to a Mac...

 

[rjkucia]

Umm, I guess I'm not sure - I guess I just assumed there would be equivalent ways to set it up for Mac, but I have no idea. I'll contact the seller to see if there are instructions. If not, I'll try to figure it out myself once it gets here. Worst case I'll just play around with the modem functionality and replace it with a RaSCSI!

 

[Mu0n]

Your milleage may vary but consider hitting the used market for pi3a or pi3b's, many people are selling them off after acquiring a pi4. I had trouble finding them 2 weeks ago but now, they are popping into existence more often right after I bought a complete pi3a (new) started kit from an offbeat electronics store in my province.

 

[rjkucia]

I'll contact the seller to see if there are instructions

He doesn't have instructions for the Mac, however since it's SLIP not PPP I think software like InterSLIP could be used. I think instructions along these lines may work: http://www.ibiblio.org/purdy/SLiRP.html

However keep in mind that I neither have the device yet nor have any idea what I'm talking about. Let me know if you're able to get that working!

 

[Patrick]

oh so its NOT ethernet emulation.
its encapsulating IP packets over a serial connection. Can't do appletalk over it, but thats still really cool way to get internet protocals to work on classic compact macs. (if it works)

 

[rjkucia]

Ah, so this will *only* work for IP? So I wouldn't have access to, for example, AFP file sharing?