The perfect "Bridge" Mac

[reallyrandy]

I've been thinking about getting a Mac that would be able to bridge an Ethernet port to a LocalTalk port via Vicomsoft SoftRouter, and then I got to thinking it would be nice to have that same Mac be able to bridge SCSI to USB and maybe even IDE/ATA. So I could use this one Mac as a hub for all my transferring all the way from the internet down to my OS 9 through System 1 Macs and even my Lisa 2/10. It should even have a floppy port to load up my FloppyEMU. And USB for thumb drives.

Right now I use a iMac G4 700 (it boots to OS9) for transferring downloads. But it doesn't do LocalTalk <>Ethernet.

I went looking over at EveryMac and found the Power Mac G3 233 has everything I need… I think.
It runs everything from OS 8 to OS 10.2.8. (I wish it went down to System 7). It has:
Serial ports
Geoport (which I believe is compatible with LocalTalk)
Ethernet RJ45
SCSI
IDE/ATA2
PCI slots (maybe I can get a USB card to work?)
CD (that could swap for A DVD-RW)

There may be other Macs out there with all this stuff too. Does anyone know of any others? Can I get USB drivers for OS 8?
What do all of you use for this kinda thing?

 

[larbob]

Indeed, I want to pick up a similar machine eventually as they seem perfect for this kind of thing. They can also run early OS X Server which is nice. There are USB cards compatible with 8.6 at least using Apple USB Adapter Card Support/Apple USB Mass Storage Support/provided drivers.

Some examples:

USB Cards for PCI Macs

USB Cards for PCI Macs

www.lowendmac.com

 

[SteveHere]

Beige G3s are a good choice for a bridge machine, but the answer to the question depends partly on how far back you want to bridge. I've found this article "Working with Macintosh Floppy Disks in the New Millennium" super informative. Based on this article I decided to use the previous generation, either a 9600 or 8600. Currently, my bridge machine is an 8600/200. This does of course rule out early versions of Mac OS X, so like any technical decision, compromises must be made.

 

[nottomhanks]

I have a Lombard G3 and a FireWire PCMCIA card with dual FW400 ports. No floppy drive, but it has USB and SCSI and Ethernet natively. Is there a way to bridge the SCSI and FireWire and mount it with a Mac Plus perhaps? I read you might be able to do something like that with OS9. Ideas?

 

[Branchus]

I agree that the Lombard is a great bridge Mac for many purposes. To my knowledge, it's the only Mac with both USB and SCSI built-in. No serial ports though, so no good for the LocalTalk requirements.

 

[OneGeekArmy]

I love the 3400c with the LocalTalk bridge for this purpose. No USB out of the box but it does the rest.

 

[aradiogurl]

I've been using a G3-266 DT as my primary bridge machine. Added a USB/Firewire PCI card to it, running 8.6 and 9.2, I have other machines running OS X. The G3 is connected to both my ethernet and localtalk networks. The onboard ethernet is slow, it's common to add a 10/100 card to these machines.

I recently built a G3 upgraded 9500, these old PCI PowerMacs are also great bridge machine when upgraded to a G3 or G4. I have mine running 7.6.1, 8.1, 8.6, and 9.1. I'll probably install OS X on it in the future.

 

[T-Man]

I have a 7500/300 with an IDE card and USB card which has been great, running 9.1 which has been a workhorse.

 

[nottomhanks]

That’s cool. I have a 7200 as well as a beige G3 that would be good as well.

 

[Patrick]

I've set up my Quadra 700 to bridge LocalTalk and Ethertalk. using that hard to find control panel. I've sense moved so I'll need to resetup my network.
at the time It was neat. I also had the a2server running in a VM on my 2013 iMac. and by accident I net booted my Apple IIe card through it.
so Apple IIe card -> LocalTalk -> Quadra 700 bridge thingie -> iMac 2013 -> virtual box vm running a2server.

I've never accidentally setup something so complicated and it worked before.

I like your guys idea of using G3 type computers to try to get usb and scsi and Ethertalk and LocalTalk bridge all together.

 

[reallyrandy]

I got a Beige G3/266 running beautifully on 8.6.

Only problem is I cannot find a firewire card that will work with it.
I've tried an Adaptec AFW-4300 and an IOGear GIC430F and neither work. I've tried Firewire enabler 2.33, 2.4, 2.5 and 2.8.3.
The System Profiler sees the card and Card Type, Model and Vendor ID are displayed but Card Model and ROM# are not.
The IOGear says it's compatible with OS 8.6 and a Blue and White G3
The Adaptec says it needs OS 9

I want to stay with 8.6 because it's the original OS, and OS 9 is sluggish on this Mac. Plus, I like Kaleidoscope!

If you've gotten it to work, please tell me the card model and the driver you're using.

 

[reallyrandy]

I've set up my Quadra 700 to bridge LocalTalk and Ethertalk. using that hard to find control panel.

What control panel?

 

[reallyrandy]

I've been using a G3-266 DT as my primary bridge machine. Added a USB/Firewire PCI card to it, running 8.6 and 9.2

Does your FW card work on 8.6? If so, what card and driver are you using?

 

[Patrick]

What control panel?

LocalTalk bridge

I thought it was very hard to find. turns out it its pretty easy to find now.

so if you have a computer with both serial and ethernet. you can use it as a bridge.

 

[aradiogurl]

Does your FW card work on 8.6? If so, what card and driver are you using?

Sonnet Tango 2.0, used the OS's built in drivers (had to do a reinstall with the card installed). I haven't actually needed to use firewire ports on the machine, but I remember seeing it show up in the System Profiler. I mostly use the USB ports so that I can use my mouse/keyboard. I've tried some other usb/firewire cards over the years, most will only work in MacOS 9.