
Connecting a Macintosh SE to the Internet with a Raspberry Pi - rbanffy
https://metalbabble.wordpress.com/2020/02/08/the-final-frontier-connecting-a-macintosh-se-to-the-internet-with-a-raspberry-pi/
======
rasz
2 years younger (1985) Atari 520ST (1), upgraded to 3MB ram.

Here (2) with proper NE2000 compatible Realtek 8019 ISA network card (3)
connected to cartridge port with super simple converter board, one 74LS245
chip.

1/
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqSZQzCMZSU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqSZQzCMZSU)

2/
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvKXWkyyYhc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvKXWkyyYhc)

large jpgs
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_UqkQ3QbWQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_UqkQ3QbWQ)

animated gifs
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPaBQijrWAQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPaBQijrWAQ)

3/ [https://sites.google.com/site/probehouse/networking-the-
atar...](https://sites.google.com/site/probehouse/networking-the-
atari/ethernet-setup-with-ethernec)

------
tr352
This is interesting as I’m trying to connect a Macintosh SE/30 that I recently
brought back to life, without having to shell out crazy money for a network
card on eBay. I wonder whether this TCP/IP over PPP solution also works under
A/UX, which is what I want to run.

~~~
rjsw
Does A/UX have a PPP driver ?

You could run NetBSD on your SE/30, it will do PPP (and IPv6).

~~~
tr352
Delved into this a bit, and found some claims that there's no PPP driver for
A/UX, so I guess there's the answer. I know about NetBSD. However, in my
somewhat irrational mind, it lacks the cool factor of A/UX, the spiritual
stepfather of Mac OS X (the biological one being NeXTStep, obviously).

~~~
rjsw
The PPP protocol isn't very complicated, how easy it would be to add to a
binary-only UNIX is another question. You could have a look for whether the
A/UX network stack is from BSD or System V. One thing that would make a big
difference is whether it supports STREAMS [1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STREAMS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STREAMS)

------
tbrock
That IP address configuration screen in the MacOS of yesteryear was amazing,
wow. The slider to select the number of host/network bits is slick. I wonder
why we don’t have something like that today.

~~~
duskwuff
> I wonder why we don’t have something like that today.

Because CIDR happened. The net/subnet/node nomenclature used by MacTCP is a
relic of classful routing.

~~~
inetknght
Just because CIDR happened doesn't mean that the subnet selection isn't
relevant anymore.

~~~
icedchai
However, _classful_ subnet selection is not longer relevant today (A, B, C...)
The Mac UI limited you to those three classful subnet masks.

Today, it's much simpler to type /26 after your IP address instead of entering
255.255.255.192, or playing around with a non-standard host/network slider.

~~~
duskwuff
> The Mac UI limited you to those three classful subnet masks.

And it assumed a specific network architecture -- e.g, if you have a class A
network, the middle two octets of your address represent a "subnet" and the
last octet represents a "node". This may have been appropriate in pre-CIDR
networks where all local nets were /24, but it's no longer true today; it's
not uncommon to have networks which split on non-octet boundaries.

------
scrollaway
Since there's enthusiasts in this thread: I have a working SE/30 in storage
but the monitor light is dead. What would be the simplest/cheapest way of
fixing it?

~~~
rbanffy
I'd say to have it diagnosed. It could be the tube or something in the analog
board. Someone experienced in repairing CRT TV's or computer monitors can help
pinning it down.

------
jasomill
This reminds me of a time when I sort of did the opposite: I networked a
serial-only DEC PDP-11/83 running 2.11BSD using SLiRP running on a Power Mac…I
want to say 7500; what I remember is that it was one of the earliest models
with PCI slots, running Yellow Dog Linux, and that I was mostly using it as a
router at the time.

Incidentally, does System 7.5 support AppleShare IP connections[1]? If so,
Netatalk should easily build and run on Raspbian, and would allow file sharing
between the SE and newer Macs with full filesystem semantics (resource forks,
etc.), though, at 9600 bps, I suppose the floppy drive is faster, though,
unlike floppies and floppy-compatible Mac filesystems, current Mac OS releases
still happily connect to AFP file shares (over TCP/IP).

Speaking of serial port speeds: at least at the software level, the "printer
port" on older Macintosh models sometimes ran faster than the "modem port", so
PPP over the printer port instead of the modem port might be worth trying.

As serial communications on older Macs was also somewhat CPU-intensive, again
speaking from decades-old memory, it might also be worth experimenting with a
more lightweight protocol like SLIP instead of PPP.

[1] While PPP is a layer 2 protocol that should, at least in principle, be
able to carry AppleTalk traffic, and while both Linux and Netatalk, at least
historically, supported the AppleTalk protocols, I'd be (pleasantly) surprised
if AppleTalk-over-PPP was supported on the Mac OS end.

Come to think of it, that's an interesting-if-less-than-useful question that I
may just have to investigate (he wrote, as he confirmed his SheepShaver OS 9
install still works fine under Catalina).

------
inetknght
The screenshots demonstrate a world in Apple where Apple isn't stupidifed by
making everything simple.

MacTCP and PPP are complex and all of the configuration options given
demonstrate a level of control that's unheard of in even Linux these days, let
alone Apple or Microsoft or Google products.

I wish modern software had that level of configurability.

~~~
retrac
Like with having to dig into WDEF and CDEF resource fork entries to make a GUI
application, I am inclined to view that more as a limitation of the technology
and the era, not a feature. It certainly wasn't what Apple _wanted_ to do.

Mac networking was, of course, supposed to be Appletalk, a system with no
configuration dialogues for normal use beyond a human-readable setting for the
computer's name. It also worked surprisingly well. The idea you could just
connect two computers together and they'd automatically network was absent
from most of the competition for another decade or more.

(For the record, I consider myself an anti-Apple fanboy. But it's only honesty
that Appletalk was a big deal.)

------
ufmace
Cool project! I had a Mac SE a while back that I only finally got rid of a
couple of years ago. It did have some weird ancient Ethernet card that had an
actual 10baseT interface with the RJ45 connector. I think I managed to get it
connected back before I lost the floppy disk with the drivers for it. Like the
article says though, the trouble is what to do with it after you're connected.

Even over the fast-ish Ethernet connection, any attempt to browse the web is
painfully slow, esp when dealing with a tiny black-and-white screen. That's
before even getting into crypto issues with modern TLS and the lack of modern
Javascript. Considering that the phones in everyone's pocket these days make
vastly better web browsing gadgets, it's hard to see what it's good for,
besides a curiosity.

------
PascLeRasc
I've had a Craigslist alert for Mac SE ever since seeing how someone made
theirs into a Spotify dashboard [1]. If anyone else has one and is interested,
the code is all found here [2].

[1] [https://www.hackster.io/news/a-macintosh-se-30-spotify-
music...](https://www.hackster.io/news/a-macintosh-se-30-spotify-music-
player-77b4852b7965)

[2]
[https://github.com/antscode/MacPlayer](https://github.com/antscode/MacPlayer)

------
BasicObject
I wish the screen wasn't out on my SE. I'm terrified to open it up with that
CRT. I'm almost certain that it just needs to be resoldered. I've been waiting
for someone to do this with a Raspberry Pi. Can the SE run any alternative
OSes? The SE/30 can run A/UX. I think you need at least the Motorola 68020 to
run OpenBSD... The SE is a 68000 with no MMU. Are you limited to Mac OS?

------
jtotheh
From like 95-97 I had my SE/30 (whose slot was tied up with a color graphics
card) accessing the internet through my PC running slackware. The whole thing
was going through a dialup connection! PPP between the two and and between the
linux box and the ISP. I don't have the SE/30 anymore though.

------
cbhl
Ah, my parents had one of these. It stopped booting in the mid 90s or so. I
wonder if all it needed was some battery replacement or something.

------
drosan
If the local mac web browser supports proxy server, you can set up a https
bypassing proxy on your RPi and browse modern websites (to an extent since web
is a pile of JS now) from that mac.

~~~
gattilorenz
Or, better, this:
[https://github.com/tenox7/wrp](https://github.com/tenox7/wrp)

The rendering/handling of JS is done on the RasPi, so almost everything should
work

~~~
sgt
That is brilliant. And you can even run it remotely (e.g. on a VM somewhere)
and have your old vintage machine connect to it.

------
theodric
You know you can just connect a Mac SE to the Internet with an Ethernet card,
right? This seems needlessly complicated.

~~~
noja
It's literally the third paragraph of the article - did you read it before
commenting?

He didn't have one, but he did have a Pi.

~~~
theodric
No, I didn't, I simply dismissed this as yet another person using a RPi when
an Arduino would do, or using an Arduino when a 555 would do, or...

~~~
II2II
There are a few considerations here:

\- The Raspberry Pi is one of the better technical solutions. It is relatively
low cost, low power, _and is fairly representative of how the Macintosh SE
would get on ethernet networks back in the day._ (In many cases a more
powerful computer would serve as a bridge between LocalTalk and ethernet
networks.)

\- Ethernet cards for the SE are rather uncommon since most SE's used
LocalTalk for file and printer sharing. PDS cards were more-or-less specific
to a model of Macintosh, so the option of sticking in a card intended for
later models is not an option. SCSI-to-ethernet bridges are only an option if
you find one with the drivers, since the drivers are virtually impossible to
find after the fact.

I will admit to being a bit disappointed by this article. I was hoping for
something more along the lines of interfacing an SE to the Raspberry Pi's
internal UART since that would take a bit more skill, though not an absurd
amount of skill. On the other hand, it is a demonstration of getting an
archaic SE online is more about creativity than ingenuity. That's important
for many of the people who pursue vintage computers as a hobby since they
don't necessarily have the electronics background to design anything more
sophisticated.

~~~
flomo
Another option would be a Ethernet-Localtalk bridge box (which were commonly
used for Apple printers). These used to be dirt cheap on ebay, but I guess
people are into this stuff and they're now over $100.

~~~
II2II
Thank you for the correction.

I just saw a video by a vintage computer collector who had one of those
Ethernet-Localtalk bridges, then realized I used to own one!

~~~
flomo
In the past I would swing by some retro Mac discussion and say "hey! you're
trying to network that classic mac? just buy this bridge for $25 on ebay!" But
they're not so cheap anymore so I guess make your own if you want.

